A Handshake and a Promise

In a previous post I indicated that we had ordered the chicks and poults (baby turkeys) from the hatchery.  I like doing business with them.  I call up to place my order and talk to a real, live person.  In this country.  Only a few hours drive from my home.  And I ask questions.  And they answer because they are real, live experts on the subject of hatching.  Then they send me a bill.

I like doing business this way.  They send me an old fashioned sheet of paper.  They trust that I will send them a check.  I trust that they will have the birds ready.  There is no on-line tracking system, no exchange of Social Security numbers.  We talk, and we do business.  I have a feeling that if we were closer we'd shake hands too.  I like that.

It turns out that the old fashioned sheet of paper they sent showed that the wrong order was placed.  I was over-ordered by 5 chickens. 

Now, as a consumer, I could get angry.  I could demand better accountability from the hatchery and wonder why they don't have a better ordering system.  Why can't I log into a computer and type out my order, have it verified, and then submit?  That's the way most of us have been trained.  Demand perfection and accept no less.

Instead, I called.  I talked to a very nice lady who changed my order and sent me another old fashioned sheet of paper.  All fixed.

It's not that they don't use technology.  I know they do.  The fact that you are reading this post on-line proves that I do too.  But what I like is that we haven't lost that human contact.  That somehow, at some level, we are involved in each others lives. This is as it should be.  

I was in a discussion at my day job not too long ago.  It's a highly automated environment.  There are still some things, though, that happen off the radar of the company.  Not bad things, but simply things that were not anticipated.  Computer systems don't like things that aren't anticipated.  When asked how those things are accomplished, I said, "Through a handshake and a promise."  The group I was speaking too laughed.  "No, really..." they wanted to know, "..how do they track these things."

It seems too much for people to believe that you can shake hands on a thing and trust it will get done.  Oh sure, maybe at first there is a lack of trust.  But over time people learn about one another until there is a trust.  It still happens.  Each time you go to a farmers market and pick your produce, you are letting the farmers know you trust them.  They're not heavily regulated, not necessarily certified, and not audited.  But you trust them.  When you buy at the store (and we all do) who are you trusting?  The farmers?  The Pickers?  The inspectors?  The transportation company?  The store personnel?  There are too many unknown people in that list.  Too many people who I will never know or see.

I'd rather look a man in the face, talk to him, and decide if I like his character.  Then I'll shake  his hand.  This is business as it should be.