I’m so looking forward to this summer – COVID is getting under control, and I’ve already been enjoying outside brewery patios with my friend Chuck, who made a map of Denver that shows about 40 breweries that he wants to explore two or three at a time!  Our plan is to create a sort of “March Madness” bracket for those we visit and crown our champion. 

Cheryl and I are also planning camping trips to enjoy Colorado outside of Denver.  If you see the PROCO360 rooftop campmobile, and if you see me sitting in my new and amazing Stargaze chair, come say “Hi!” and have a beer! 

SEE LARGER HERE

I received this email (as did tens of thousands of Epic Pass holders) from Rob Katz, CEO of Vail Resorts.  Not only did Rob do the right thing by stating that he feels Vail has fallen short and apologizing, he warmed my heart with the statement, “This is certainly not the fault of our call center agents, who have tried their best to provide great service under difficult circumstances.  It is my fault for not ensuring we were better prepared.”  Rob is being a great leader by supporting his front-line team and asking that any frustration be directed at him instead.  Rob, thanks for being a role model of the Colorado spirit!   

I was at a post office in Littleton last weekend to ship a box and the line in front of me stopped because a woman asked for a roll of stamps.  The clerk had to leave his post for almost 5 minutes to GO GET THEM.  A post office clerk had to leave his station to go get (find, it seemed) STAMPS???  

Slow, inept, uncaring. 

Since my work office uses a postal meter, today I spent an hour taking 8 boxes of packages to the post office.  Why take them?  Because last year when we ordered FREE PICKUP, the post office never arrived, and my account said that they’d been picked-up as scheduled.  I decided to just take them this time, and hoping to avoid hauling 8 crates from the parking lot, through a door I’d have to somehow prop open with one foot while I pulled a dolly and tried not to touch anything with COVID on it, I stopped outside and asked a postal worker if I could borrow a wheeled bin.  He was upbeat, friendly and eager to assist, “Just back up here to the loading dock and I’ll get them from you!”  I did that – EASY – and he gave me replacement bins for next time.   

Easy, fast, friendly.  That’s today’s impression of the post office at 225 S. Broadway.  One person did that!   

Of course we’re all talking about COVID-19.  It’s pretty much the ONLY thing we’re talking about.  Every organization’s focus is on it, and every organization feels compelled to communicate about it – to add to the dialogue because it seems if we don’t, then we’re irrelevant now.  It doesn’t matter that before COVID-19 we had a perfectly wonderful business focused on delivering products or services to customers who wanted them – now our business is all about COVID-19.

No, it’s not.

Communicating during and about COVID-19 should be within the context of staying connected to the people who cared, and will care again, about how we served one another before all this.