Do It Now!
by Bob Abrames

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It gets harder to call them. More tension builds in the conversation (when there is one). And, finally, it comes down to the coldest of communications: an email. I'm sure all of us have been in this situation at one time or another -- hopefully for you, not too often.

It happened to me recently. I was supposed to get to a travel agent with an answer relative to a request she had made. I wasn't able to provide the service because it wasn't available yet. I called her with a promise to get back to her, I didn't, she called me, I called her . . . and so on. I started to call back less often, with very good reasons of course. (Ya, right!) The end result is I didn't do the right thing, and it bugged me and embarrassed me. That's it -- I was embarrassed! No need to be, really! If I would have kept the communication going and been straightforward, I wouldn't be in the pickle I'm in now.

Out of all this, I've learned my lesson. I have also learned that these things bug me and prevent me from operating at optimum efficiency and capacity. I can't move forward without making sure that what I've done in the past is clean and neat. If you are like me, you don't do quite as well on the current task when the previous task is not attended to properly.

It's amazing but very true for all of us: When people do what they say they'll do, we are usually very impressed with the quality of service. Isn't that the least someone can expect, though?