Great Example Of The Definition of “Service”: Daycare
Last summer, my wife was researching daycare facilities for my then 2 yr. old daughter. Although we thought the ‘curriculum’ being ‘taught’ at the different schools was important, to us, the most important criteria was that the school provide a caring and comfortable environment for our daughter (sounds easy enough, right?)
After a couple of weeks of researching, interviewing and touring several facilities, my wife came across “Wendy”. Wendy ran the Strawberry Hills daycare and my wife just loved her. So, I decided to go and meet her as well. Although I thought she was very nice - the school was empty - I didn’t get the same feeling as my wife (I didn’t realize at the time that most of the children were away with their parents for summer vacation).
Anyway, I convinced my wife to go select a more “known” daycare (lets call them: “KinderX”) because they seemed so much more professional and orderly - totally forgetting the key criteria (CARING) that my wife and I discussed and agreed upon.
Now, fast forward to today. While my daughter loves the daycare, to be honest, its a fairly sterile place: they didn’t even remember (or care) about my daughter’s (or any other child’s) birthday. Plus, heaven’s forbid if I was a day late with the weekly payment.
The final straw was when I could not find her cubby to place her hat and gloves. Since she is a part-timer along with the fact that they have taken on so many additional kids, her cubby was moved and was now being shared with another part-timer. That was it for me.
So, I bit my tongue and told my wife that I wanted our daughter to go to another school next year. I was also a little curious to see if we could try “Wendy’s school”. That turned out to be a good move - my wife was secretly hoping I would come around - and she immediately scheduled a meeting with Wendy.
As soon as Wendy saw my wife she immediately hugged her and asked how my daughter was doing. And, get this, she even remembered meeting my mother-in-law! Yeah, that did it for us. She later told my wife that parents invite her to their children’s birthday parties and holiday functions - she is a part of the family. How could I have missed this diamond right there in front of me! She cares.
We cannot wait for my daughter to attend Strawberry Hills in the fall.
All the best -
Daniel
Subscribe to this blog's RSS feed
So, what’s your credit score?
Taking a step back, an even more important question is, ‘what constitutes the credit score’? If you want to know, read on -
The most commonly used credit score is the ‘FICO Score’, developed by the Fair Issac Corporation (FICO). The score can range from 300 to 850 and lenders purchase the scores from the three national credit bureaus: [...]
Are You Running Your Own Race?
A couple of days ago read a nice article from Zen Habits on the subject of Mantras.
As I was running the other day, I was thinking about mantras, and how Ive used them with some success in different situations. As silly as you may feel by repeating a mantra, I think they have great use [...]
Manhattan apartments: prices up, sales down
Thought I would share the latest data on Manhattan sales for the 1st quarter. The article is written by Theresa Agovino from Crains NY.
Enjoy - Daniel
The average sale price of a Manhattan apartment hit $1.7 million in the first quarter, up 33% from 1Q 2007, according to one report.
April 02. 2008 12:08AMBy: Theresa Agovino
Bloomberg [...]
