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Service, taken or offered, is a critical part of our everyday lives. It could be sold or bought or free or a relationship. Service can come in the form of a business transaction or help to a person or group. It could be (by) an agreement or in the case of slavery or rape, etc., by force.
The question that this entry seeks to answer is: where you have intentionally and willingly agreed to offer service, how do you do it? Do you serve without a heart, that is, halfheartedly? Do you offer service without joy, that is, unhappily? Do you do it without arrogance, that is, proudly and humbly?
Love is the hallmark of service. Love is at the centre every time we sell or gift service. Alas, service can come from an enemy on the day that a lover or friend or ally fails. The lesson from the foregoing is: love can come from an enemy while hate can come from a lover.
Many people who render service don’t know it is a calling. Many servers have not been called. Or, to put it mildly, many of those offering service -whether as a business or help- have only been called -not chosen. Many servants are called but few are chosen.
This is why the service industry is entirely, completely and totally messed up. People pay for service but either never get it or have to quarrel and shout in the process or afterwards. Most times, poor service is responsible for what Americans call buyer’s remorse. Sometimes, it is not about the quality of or need for the good bought nor even its packaging, it is the manner of delivery, the way it was served.
Over the weekend, a Nigerian state chief executive described drivers and personal assistants as the most dangerous members of one’s team. For a governor to say that, it’s clear it’s not about money or the pay for this category of personal staff. Most of the servants who ought to offer the most loyalty fail because they neither understand their mandate nor do they have it in them. People you chose and who agreed to serve you will from the comfort of your bedroom sell you out, saying things they never should; because they are stupid, untrustworthy and were never qualified in the first place for such enormous responsibility and confidence and confidentiality.
Also condemned to that league of shame are exes and former aides or colleagues who rant about the past. They forget that only small minds tell tales about the person they once served. Even worse, they don’t remember that such childishness closes present and future doors of trust. Too many former-this and former-that have no ‘new testament’ respectable nomenclatures because they bit the hand that fed them the moment the feeding ceased in the ‘old testament’ of service.
Something else you should know. Most former office holders who after waiting endlessly take far lower offers do so in the hope that they can break the jinx of the dark abyss into which they sank after having voiced abominable ingratitude or having acted treacherously. Others apologise, swearing they are changed people. A few actually are.
How do you serve? Are you always happy, honest and humble? On the other hand, what manner of service recipient are you? Are you forever grateful, respectful and patient?
(Continued next Monday)
I am: The cure for inferiority complex
I am obedient to good -I go for the best always without fear or favour. I am one-of-a-kind -there’s no two or second me. I am organically original, optimistic and opulent -you have me on your side or you lose.
I am peaceable; in fact, I am peace personified. I am precious; in fact, I am priceless. I am praiseworthy; in fact, I am pure.
I am qualified, all-round: I am qualitative; I am qualitied; I am quality; I am quantity, plus. I am the quorum the enemy can never form: I am the query the devil can never answer; I am the quiz Satan always fails because I am qabalistic; I am quemeful -like my Father. I am all round quick: I am quick-eyed; I am quick-sighted; I am quick-thinking, I am quick-witted.
I am real; I am reliable. I am a resource; I am resourceful. I am responsible; I am responsive.
I am sane, I am safe and I am sonsy. I am sought-after, I am successful and I am stable. I am a star with the savvy, the swag, and all that is required.
I am tenaciously thankful; I am triumphantly top-notch. I am transnormal; I am transpicuous. I am tuneful; I am a professional tycoon.
Which is it for you: Money or access?
Whether in service, or mentoring or leadership, would you rather your boss or mentor or leader offered you cash or the freedom to see them twenty-four-seven? In a world as avaricious as ours, the tendency is to go for the money without delay.
Yes, money is good; money makes you feel good: able, blessed, feared, loved, powerful, protected, ready, respected, rich, unneedy. Yes, money is these and more.
However, money is second-class when access appears because while money can create access, some access: access creates money, every type of money and more. You can have all the money yet no access, but you cannot have all the access and not make money from it directly or indirectly, except you are a fool.
If you have access -real access- to any person of/in power, change your strategy today and watch how you flourish. Stop asking for or eyeing money every time.
Start accentuating the access you have. Start throwing in great ideas; start introducing valuable proposals; start recommending trustworthy businesspeople.
The moment even one of them flies, you shall see that money is nothing. You shall then prove beyond every reasonable and unreasonable doubt that access has no good second -not even money is!
