I got a bill in the mail today that I’ve been looking for.

It’s an expensive one, but that’s okay.

In fact, I’m quite glad I got it.

Family owned and operated businesses have unique challenges.

Ours isn’t large enough to have a lot of specific dos and don’ts, still, there a few things that I personally have learned over the years.

One is, don’t look at what has happened with any right or wrong judgement until it is a day old. 

I partially failed in this, not so long ago, and what I learned once my head cleared is something I’m still humbled by.

*****

It was sort of a normal day for me.  I was making an inventory run to town, had an appointment or two to make while I was in town, and needed to keep the boys running as efficiently as possible at the jobs they were on.

But I was carrying extra stress.  I knew we were running short on time for the job that we were on, and there were a couple of calls that were waiting until we were done on this job.  Since it was taking longer than I thought, I needed to call those customers and reschedule, something I’m not overly fond of doing.

The pressure intensified as we neared Dodge; my phone was ringing or pinging every half mile, the way it seemed, and from what I gathered, the boys weren’t running at top speed. 

In fact, it seemed to me they were at one of their slower paces. 

I started complaining to Mama Jan.

Poor her. 

She so often has to take the middle position between the boys and their dad. 

I gave all the facts out, assuring her of how I knew about how much work was going to get done, and how short we were going to fall at the end of the day, both time-wise and money-wise.

As the day progressed, I got a phone call from one of the guys, saying, rather apologetically, how he really hadn’t gotten much done in the morning, he had people calling him that he couldn’t disregard.

Which made me mad.

They are supposed to call me, so I can keep the pressure off the guys, so they can keep working.

And I figured the reason they were calling him was because they didn’t like their calls going to voicemail on my phone while I was in at my appointments.

Noon came and went, and I should have had at least four hours of nonjudgmental time already racked up where I had let things remain neutral in my mind as per the aforementioned guideline.

But instead, I had four hours of stress racked up and it was building even as I drove the inventory out to where the guys were working.

When I got there, I met three guys who seemed clueless about what needed to happen next.

So, I piously, patiently, and somewhat self righteously explained what needed to be done.

And those three immediately took issue with it.

Because it violated code.

Okay.  I knew that. 

But. 

Code can sometimes be reached only partially, due to existing structure or, a compromise between a customer who maybe can’t afford code but needs their emergency fixed, nonetheless.

I could feel myself losing it.

The customer was waiting.  We needed wire in the walls, not voices in the air.

And, it was three against one, and I knew it. 

I knew they were more than likely right, just as I knew, due to experience, I was more than likely right.

So, I finally told them, not so quietly, that they could have at it, do it their way, and I left.

*****

I got home and blew my top to Mama Jan.

I went on and on about my frustrations of our different views on code and customer satisfaction.

And then, Mama Jan started crying.

So, I asked her why.

And she told me.

*****

The day before, we had been trenching in a main service and hit a water line. 

Which happens occasionally.  It just means we must stop and fix it before we go on. 

But this was a big water line, and it flowed massively. 

The customer didn’t know it was there, and told us, that barring any other reason, we should cap it and go on.  Which we did.

But, a day after we hit it, which was the current day I am talking about, Mama Jan told me the city guys showed up on the front doorstep of the house we were wiring. 

And they were upset.

Because the water line we capped fed a large gas booster station.

They admitted they didn’t know where it was and more than likely we would have hit it regardless.

They asked if I had done a onecall to mark all the underground lines.  Upon which, the son they were ranting at called his mother to see if I had.  She asked me, and I said no. 

Well, maybe I almost screamed no. 

Because it was out in the middle of a field, and one service had already trenched right through where we were going to trench, had marked their line, and there were no other lines marked. 

So, I saw no need to do the onecall.

Still, we were clearly at fault for not calling it in.

So, it turns out that while I was going on and on in the morning about my frustrations, my boys were taking the heat for me, and arranging a repair to be made (the bill I got today) on the city water main.

And, to top it off, I spoke rather unkindly to them in the afternoon of the same day they took all the heat for me in the morning, and they never once mentioned what had happened to me. 

I suppose another guideline of a family-owned business is that each has the other’s back. 

Thanks boys. 

You were better men than I was that day.