Monsters, Key Lime, and Customer Service...

1. March is known as the windy month. Which of the following phrases best fits your March so far...'throw caution to the wind', 'three sheets to the wind', 'run like the wind', or 'see which way the wind blows'?

Oh geez - any of them, depending on the day!  We're throwing caution to the wind with our new business, I feel three sheets to the wind by the end of the week sometimes, I'm running like the wind after work with the kiddos, and we're seeing which way the wind blows with my husband's business!

2. Your favorite green food? Your favorite dish made with your favorite green food?

This is a shout out to Aunt Pat, with whom I shared the most delicious key lime pie ever, at Flounders restaurant in Pensacola, Florida!  Hi Aunt Pat!

3. Ever been locked out of your home-car-office-anywhere? Do tell!

Yep - when I was 7 or 8 months pregnant with our daughter, my husband had already left to teach Sunday school at the early service, and I had our 4-year-old son in the car, when I realized I had locked my keys in the house.  Ugh - pregnancy brain!  All doors locked.  The only window open was our tiny bathroom window.  So (not thinking straight, because, you know... pregnancy brain...)  I jimmied the window open and hoisted my hugely pregnant self up through the window and dropped down onto the floor - HOW I didn't hurt myself or our baby I'll never know - there must have been angels surrounding me, saying to the Lord "Oh dear - here she goes again, full on case of pregnancy brain!  Let's surround her guys, you ready?  On one!"

If I HAD been thinking with a non-pregnancy brain, I would have simply lowered my limber three-year-old through the three-year-old-sized window and let him get my keys!  Thus not endangering the lives of his mother or unborn sister.  

What can I say... lets here it for the angels protecting us!  Good grief...

4. Yoda, Kermit, Shrek, The Wicked Witch of the West, Oscar the Grouch, The Grinch, or Mike Wasowski (Monsters Inc.)...of the green characters listed, which one's your favorite and why?

Well, since we're reminiscing about when i was pregnant with my daughter (I'm on a roll, apparently) Monsters Inc had just come out when she was born - and as a newborn she had a habit of opening only one eye and looking around - and Caleb, my four-year-old, would say "It's Clarissa and her ONE EYE!" just like they did with Mike Wasowski!

I'm also a huge Kermit fan... after all, he's a frog, and he's a Muppet... love them both!


5. "The first task of a leader is to keep hope alive."~Joe Batten Do you agree? Why or why not? 

Absolutely.  The first task... not the ONLY task.  But yes, a leader must instill a sense of optimism and hope - of a future that is good and worth investing in.  But true leadership must take it beyond that, with planning and implementation.  But it must first start with hope.

6. Share a favorite song with an emotion in it's title.

Well, there's this one of course... (a nod to my youth leader days)

But my favorite, because it's a happy song, is this one...

7. What's a road trip you'd like to take?

I would love to go on a drive, staying in quaint bed and breakfasts along the way, through the North East of America in the fall, looking at the fall colors.  Sampling maple syrup in Vermont.  You know... because that's how I romanticize it in my western-raised mindset.

If I can go to another country for my drive, I'd like to do this one in Italy!

8. Insert your own random thought here.

So yesterday I posted on Facebook this statement: "It's official, I have become a customer service snob"  And I had friends asking me for the story behind this statement.  Because I, yes, usually have a hysterically bizarre story to go along a story like this.  But this time... it wasn't funny... it was just an eye-rolling phone conversation with a company I was hiring, wherein I could hardly hear the person on the other end of the line, it was blatantly obvious that she had no desire to really provide me with the service I was requesting, nor did she value my call. At. All.  And when I asked for more specifics as to what services they would provide, who would be coming to the house, etc - she acted offended, like I was taking up her time.

I'm sorry.  But when you are in customer service - whether you are answering phones or greeting people into a store, YOU are the first representative of your company to the people who make it possible for you to have a job.  Not that I expect special treatment, for pete's sake... just common courtesy, politeness, and professionalism.  You never know who will be calling or walking in - if they need your smile, if they are coming in to spend $5 or $500... regardless, every customer deserves the same amount of decency and appreciation for taking time to give you business.

So there... that's my spiel.  No dramatic story per say... I'm just a customer service snob.