The Written Podcast: Thinking Outside the Box

Last week, whilst at work, I made a mistake. Nothing damaging that led to my dismissal, but a mistake which resulted in a couple of stressful moments. I ordered the wrong tyres. It was an honest mistake, but did mean the customer had to wait longer for his car. This happened on a Thursday, which meant I could rectify that mistake by ordering in the right tyres for first delivery Friday morning. From the customer’s perspective, their car had failed its MOT, meaning they wouldn’t have been able to take the car home that evening, but instead had to wait until Friday afternoon at the latest before they could drive out of our retailer.

This mistake wasn’t noticed by anyone until the technician who came to collect the tyres from our department. At the time they came to collect, I was currently away in another department in the company, helping a customer with a problem they had. Fortunately, it was an easy problem which could be dealt with easily and that particular customer could leave happier than when they arrived. Upon returning to the department did the technician take me to the tyres and point out the problem.

When in an incredibly busy retailer, with technicians coming at you from every angle with their demands, front counter customers ringing the doorbell all day long, and the phones ringing either from internal queries or outside traders – mistakes will happen. From those affected, there are no excuses. They see it as a very black and white situation; you made the mistake, I don’t care why – how are you going to rectify it. I work in a very supportive environment – we help each other to alleviate some pressure of one section of the job. Unfortunately, even then one of us can take our eye of the ball. It does happen, we’re only human. For some mistakes, no matter how small, they can have a dramatic knock-on effect. If I customer is not happy they’ll make it known one way or another. The same goes for a technician, because if the wrong part was ordered, they’re efficiently decreases the longer they wait for the right part to come in. There will always be a series of ripples from the epicentre, even from the smallest of mistakes.

Whenever I make a mistake, it can hit hard. You’ve started a set of ripples which will now extend outward, affecting other areas of the pond. Some mistakes can be rectified immediately, meaning we can all carry on as normal as if it never happened. Others, it takes time to sort out, which is what this mistake entailed.

Fortunately, the customer was an extremely understanding person. They listened to what the service adviser had to say, and was grateful that we were sorting out the problem straight away. Of course, it did mean they couldn’t take their car home that evening, but they would tomorrow with four brand new tyres, so they’d left us to sort the situation out and come back tomorrow. They also didn’t live too far away from our retailer, allowing them the opportunity to walk from us to home and vice versa on Friday. Whenever you get such a nice customer as them, it does take the pressure off ever so slightly – it does help prevent another mistake from happening.

I phoned up one of two of our regular tyre companies and explained the situation and the particular tyre size we need. This is where things started to go downhill. The two specific sizes of tyres fitted to their car were rare. Our regular tyre company did not have any stock of what we needed for a next-day delivery. Those specific tyres would arrive next week. Problem. To add more fuel to the fire, the front tyres were rarer than the rear tyres. The rear tyres would definitely arrive next week on Tuesday, whereas the front tyres could arrive on Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on how quick the company could acquire those tyres. Did I mention this was just before the Bank Holiday Monday, so the customer would not be able to use their car for the entirety of the weekend. When I was told the tyres would not arrive any sooner than next week, the thought of crushing the customer’s plans instantly came into my mind. We could lend him a cutesy car for the trouble, but still, they’d have to come back to collect their car from us, and their plans could involve going a long drive away.

I had no choice but to accept that and go the two front tyres ordered as well as the two rear tyres ordered.

I then had a thought. We have two tyre companies. What if I phoned up them and see how quickly they could deliver the two front tyres by? They might be here quicker, or they might not be, but with four tyres the same size coming from two different companies, my logic was, if one had complications, the other company would deliver, and vice versa. That made sense.

So, I phoned up our other tyre company to see if they could get them here sooner, but they also explained the rarity of the tyres and also said they’d not be delivered until next week. They also said the tyres would be delivered either on Tuesday or Wednesday. Maybe one company would deliver sooner than the other – it was certainly worthy a shot. Once I put the phone down, I had to go and tell the service adviser the news.

I went down to the service advisers’ desk and sheepishly explained the situation. The service adviser didn’t say anything remotely disheartening, just excepted the situation and that they’ll phone the customer with the news – a rather unexpected answer if I do say so myself, but I still had that thought at the back of my mind, of the customer breaking the news that they’re going abroad next week or something which required their car, which is why they got its MOT done in good time.

But I heard nothing. Now news is good news? I later found out that the customer has accepted the situation, is understanding that the tyres were rare, and are happy to wait for them to arrive next week. I was a little dumbfounded by how nice the customer was, but a wave of relief washed over me, which meant I could wait for those tyres to arrive knowing I haven’t caused any major problems in that customer’s life.

Skipping ahead to the Tuesday, all four tyres turned up. The other company was nowhere to be seen. My plan had worked. The tyres could then be fitted to the car without waiting any longer, and when the other tyres landed, I could send them back. The other company delivered the other two front tyres the next day, on Wednesday. If I hadn’t ordered via the other company, the customer would’ve had to wait yet another day. When those tyres turned up, the customer had already collected their car.

This is where it got a little spooky. I mean, I was actually shocked. I struggled to believe the odds of this happening.

On Wednesday afternoon, a different service adviser came to the back counter, job car in hand, and asked to order some tyres. They weren’t a part of the previous job, but had heard of the problem, and they acknowledged said problem because the technician who was carrying out the MOT failed the car on the fact that the two front tyres were below the legal limit.

It turns out, the car in question, had the same front tyres as the car we’d had the problem with. Seriously. The service adviser who was aware of how rare these tyres were asked how quickly we would be able to get them here by. They certainly weren’t expecting me to say to them that we had them in stock. I certainly weren’t expecting another car to have the exact tyres I had ordered in as a back-up just in case one of our two tyre companies had complications.

I genuinely had to make a double take when I read the tyre size on the invoice, and then had to check the two tyres just to make sure what was on the invoice matched up, because I just couldn’t believe how synced it all was. I was genuinely speechless.

To sum up what had happened: I ordered in the wrong tyres – the correct tyres were rarer than most other tyres and wouldn’t be delivered until next week, after the Bank Holiday Monday – I ordered the two front tyres from both companies as they both stated the tyres would land either on the Tuesday or Wednesday; my out-of-the-box thinking led me to believe one company would turn up before the other, and that’s exactly what happened (one company turned up on the Tuesday, and the other on Wednesday – and on Wednesday, another car had failed its MOT for its two front tyres being below the legal limit, and they so happen to be the rare tyres I had ordered two of from both companies. Which meant, the technician could take the tyres, fit them to the completely different car, so the completely different customer could take their car home that day. What are the chances of that happening?

That’s the very first time I could genuinely say I took control of hindsight. How many times have we experienced a situation where we realise we should have done something to prevent whatever problem has happened as a result of not doing that thing? If I had not ordered those tyres from the other company, it would have been another couple of days before the tyres were delivered, maybe even longer for all we knew at the time, since the tyres were rarer than most others. I could have dismissed the idea of ordering from the other company, and entrusted the one I had ordered all four to come from to deliver at the same time, but I didn’t, and instead thought outside of the box.

That made my day, especially considering the previous customer who had to wait so long for their car didn’t complain once about the situation, but was just a genuinely nice person who accepted that mistakes happen, and that some tyres were rarer than others. Overall, everyone came out on top. There actually weren’t any escalating problems, but instead everyone benefited from the outcome.

I very much doubt a situation like that will happen again for quite some time to come. But when it does, I’ll relish in that moment. I may even wright another blog post about it.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)