Let's Be Excellent

 

I had grand plans for today’s post. I was going to show and tell you all about my spring planting adventures. Ryan and I purchased our flowers and garden plants, and I was so excited to show you how they all looked in their new homes…but they’re all still in their little pots sitting by the door.

                It’s rained almost every day since we bought the plants, and I haven’t been home, and we had an unexpected vet visit. I feel like the entire week has been a survival game on every front, and I can only hope the plants are surviving in their temporary homes until I can give them a permanent one.

                I’ve seen glimpses of hope in the forecast, and I’ve also seen glimpses of hope in our calendar that might give us a couple of hours at home to plant flowers.

                But what I really want to talk about is the vet visit and what it taught me.

                I noticed on Monday that Lexi wasn’t acting like herself, but it wasn’t overly alarming, so I didn’t worry too much. I was gone almost all day on Tuesday, and when I came home to give Lexi her afternoon snack and change my clothes to go to the gym, I found her very sick. It’s always scary to discover your pet is sick and not know what happened.

                I couldn’t imagine what she might have gotten into. Because of the excessive rain, she hadn’t gotten to walk outside much over the weekend, and she doesn’t tend to get into things inside the house. But something was obviously very wrong, and we called the vet to see about an emergency appointment.

                Our vet didn’t have any appointments until the next day, so we scheduled one, but we kept looking. We found another office that could get us in before the end of the day, so we took that opportunity.

                We made our way into the new-to-us office with a nervous/excited/sick little girl, and the from the moment the vet tech came to get us for the beginning of our appointment, we couldn’t believe the intentionality and care we received.

                She took her time, asked questions about what we were seeing in Lexi, and took careful notes to share with the doctor. When he came in, we could tell he had read the notes and he talked things over with us before he even looked at her. He examined her gently and took note of her pain. The doctor and the tech were so loving and compassionate, and when they took her back for x-rays, we felt completely at ease.

                When she came (running) back to us after her x-rays, they told us she had gotten a little too excited and had an accident, so they gave her a mini bath to clean her up. And then they went over every inch of the x-rays and spent time explaining what they found (and didn’t find) and what the next course of action would be.

                As we paid the bill, we also let them know we’d be establishing care for her there. We came home marveling at the kindness, attention, and care we had received from these people who just met us.

                I told Ryan it reminded me of a chapter I just read in a book called The Come Back Effect, specifically this: “Over the years, our expectations for customer service have dropped. In fact, even when we get mediocre customer service, we often celebrate it by writing on a comment card. We’ve become so accustomed to bad service, ‘just okay’ is often an improvement over the norm.”

                I told Ryan that what we experienced at the vet shouldn’t have been shocking. We had a sick baby girl and had every right to expect that we would be seen and heard – and that Lexi would be loved and cared for with compassion. We should have expected thorough care and easy-to-understand explanations. We should have expected a plan of action.

                But it was shocking because it was so personal and careful – and while we don’t feel like we’ve had bad care before, we haven’t had anything this amazing.

                It reminded me to work hard to be excellent. I don’t want to even be just okay. I want to be excellent. I want to serve with excellence and make people feel seen, heard, and loved.

                Let’s be excellent, friends! No matter what we’re doing, let’s do it the very best we can!