It’s Worth Noting

I’m a door holder. If you have a baby on your hip or a coffee in one hand, I wait. I hold the door open for you. Just you and me in the room, in the hall, stranger or not, I say “hello.” I talk to my grocery store clerks. I tell most everyone to have a great day and I really mean it and I’m not even obnoxiously cheerful. It just seems right, feels right, for me.

Kindness, sympathy, openness, the ability to listen and then relate to complete strangers, to hone in on the sensitivity or the significance of a piece of furniture beyond the practicality – I think these traits and skills are crucial in our jobs as Design Associates. If a customer notes that this bed is for her daughter’s birthday, I give myself a cue to remember that. A move to a new house, or a much anticipated remodel that is taking forever, I make a note. An order for a glider and a Moda crib is a signal that there’s a new arrival heading this family’s way and we chat about that. A new living room sofa before someone’s high school graduation party; a new dining room table needed before Thanksgiving, I’m jotting down notes. A magazine or blog coming for a photo shoot in seventeen days: noted. A new accent chair for an aging mother’s transition to a nursing home, this is a wonderful choice.

Wide in range, each of these scenarios, they’re all important to my customers. There is always anticipation and excitement built up around a Room & Board delivery. That piece of furniture might represent a transition, might be symbolic of a gathering or celebration, it might be an achievement, or it might simply be a comfortable sofa for the family to hang out on on Friday nights and watch movies. Room & Board is lucky to be a part of our customers’ lives in this very small way.

So to these strangers who flit in and out of my life on the phone, I say “congrats on the baby! Enjoy the long nights in the glider; it goes so fast.” “I’m glad your mom got settled in smoothly.” “I’m relieved the table and the sofa made it in time, and the parties and photo shoots went off without a hitch.” “Enjoy your furniture; enjoy your life. And thank you.”