A Continent is Amazing... Until You Are Promised The World

In the service industry, I must admit that perception is everything. Actual quality of service doesn't matter nearly as much as the way the consumer perceives the quality of your service. What brought this on, you ask? We just finished getting my new place tiled, so we have spent the past four days "dealing" with the installers.

Day one was amazing. The main man was there telling us how things would go and essentially promising the world. We walked out of there happy as clams in silt with our expectations soaring. The next day, we were a little disconcerted to find that he didn't bother showing up and didn't communicate the previous day's promises to his worker bees. So, we started fresh and let them know exactly what he promised and how we'd like it carried out. (We are strong, Southern women, so we aren't afraid to speak our minds - most of the time.)

The main man didn't show up on day three, either, but that's OK because we were very used to his number two and were re-adjusting our levels of expectations. Ah, but day four kicked us in the head again. Number two didn't even bother showing up, leaving what looked to be a fresh-faced teenager in charge. It turned out that the youngster was more than capable and did a wonderful job, but we kinda feel like a little bit of honesty would have gone a long way for our peace of mind.

We felt like we had to call them and ask for explanations rather than them calling us to explain and reassure. We may have beat them down on the price (did I mention we are incredibly frugal people?), but they knew what they were promising when the deal was done. A continent is amazing... until you are promised the world. Regardless, the tile looks amazing, and I'm so ready to move in; I just wish the journey would have been a little more worry free.