Peaches, Pizza and Graphic Design
by Adrian Hanft, (3 comments)
Growing up working in the produce department at the local grocery store left me with very high standards when it comes to eating fruit. I have been thoroughly disappointed with the produce from the chain grocery stores, and it has been years since I have had a good peach. When I saw the peach stand selling locally grown peaches today over lunch, I had to stop. The lady attending the stand offered me a sample, and we had a delightful little chat about peaches. I left with a $5 bag of six delicious peaches and a smile on my face.
Fast forward to 8:30 this evening when I was picking up my film from Sam’s Club. I hadn’t eaten dinner so I decided to see if there was any pizza left at their food court. The guy behind the counter was friendly when I asked if it was too late to get a slice of pizza. He recommended the pepperoni so I bought a slice. The total was $2.01 and he gladly said he could cover the penny. Then he gave me the last two slices of pizza. I left with a plate of grease and a smile on my face.
As I reflect on my day, I feel like I can learn a lot from these two workers. Sure, graphic design seems like a dream job compared to slinging grease in a food court or standing outside at a roadside fruit stand all day, but is it really all that different? Aside from the occasional awesome jobs that come along, the majority of our time is spent resizing ads, burning disks, making endless text revisions, and hours of tedious work. That’s not what I signed up for, but they don’t call it work for nothing. Both of the workers I met today show that we are selling more than peaches, pizza, or graphic design. Do your interactions with your co-workers leave a sweat taste in their mouth? Do your clients feel that they got more than what they paid for? We have the potential to make the days of the people we interact with better, it just takes a little effort. I don’t know about you, but I could definitely do better.
Comments (3)
p.berkbigler said:
I guess I’d also hazard that a love of what you do / provide is fairly contagious and well worth working hard to sustain (even in the midst of those tedious, mundane, grindstone aspects of what we do) - people love to work with people who are engaged by / really fired up by the things they have the chance to do, even if it’s selling peaches or designing logos.
Your comment also goes back to what I think is absolutely a dying art in America: true customer interaction (what used to go under the guise of “customer service”) - almost every great consumer interaction I’ve ever had (service at a restaurant, being sold a soda in a gas station, etc.) more or less boiled down to two or three things:
The person was willing to admit on one level or another that I was actually another person and not just “another customer” (smile, friendly remark, some sort of conversational interaction).
The person was willing to in some way or another talk about what they were offering and not just offer some scripted sales pitch or some pre-trained greeting (or if it was pre-trained, they’d really made the act their own).
They had some significant enjoyment of or concern for where they were working and what they were doing.
The other lesson for all of us within your comments, Adrian, is to approach client relations with a little less fear and trepidation - I know I’m guilty of feeling a bit like “the work would be great if clients didn’t come along and screw it all up” at times when I’m working on projects. Frankly, though, I’ve had enough jobs that were ten times more interesting simply because of the chance to interact with the client and share something in the process…
Make work an invitation to get to know someone and it’s always richer…
Posted on September 1, 2005
Kyle said:
Adrian, I’m right there with ya. And it’s that extra effort to make your own day (and everyone else’s) positively enjoyable that helps you better serve clients and even get you further in your career (by way of positive feedback, reviews, raises, etc).
Paul, you’re spot on.
Posted on September 9, 2005
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