Small World
Posted By Russ Emerson on December 10, 2003 at 11:28 am
This week I’ve done something I haven’t done regularly in the past few years: I’ve spoken with a customer on the phone to try to fix a networking problem.
These days, my technical assistance is delivered in the form of “how-to” documents, web-based troubleshooting tools, and Microsoft-like (*spit*) “knowledge base” items. I rarely talk to a real live customer.
The technical issue the customer needed help with was not overly complicated, but in the course of the conversation, the customer mentioned that he and a certain employee in our company had gone to school together, and did I happen to know Bob?
Wow, a “small world” moment. Bob had been my teammate from my earlliest days in Technical Assistance, back when I was talking to customers on the phone every day. I have spoken with, quite literally, thousands of customers.
I asked my customer how he had known Bob.
They had gone to elementary school together.
The same school I attended.
In fact, though we were several years apart, we were there at the same time. Of course, as a Fifth-grader, any mere Kindergartener would have been beneath my notice.
The world shrinks yet again, in unexpected ways.
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