07/23/2021
Happy Friday! Today's post is by a former employee, and it hasn't been authorized by Glass With a Twist. My name is Dashel, and if you've been in contact with customer service between 2016 and 2019, there's a 1 in 6 chance I handled it, using my real name, as we all did in that department when I was there (they still do).
I moved out of state in early 2019 and that's the ONLY reason I left Glass With a Twist. idk if they'll delete this, and I'd be ok if they did... Heaven knows this might just look like a publicity stunt, because I bring you good things, rather than scandal. This is guerrilla appreciation. The thing is, the owner made me a page admin once for a small project once, and he forgot to remove me when I left the company.
Do you know why?
Because he trusts me.
He didn't have to go through and wipe their system. The owner and the staff simply had better things to do than worry about a former employee causing some kind of trouble...for going on three years. They've probably noticed I'm still an admin and figured they'd get around to fixing it, but they didn't spring up and say, "Oh no! This could be a problem!" because they know I would never create one (unless I'm doing so now, which I certainly do not intend to). I'm sure it would have made sense on a slow day, to dot all their teas and cross all their eyes (sic)...but they don't really *do* slow days.
Do you know why?
Because this is an honest business you're looking at.
Honest businesses have lots of better things to do, primarily: staying in business and doing the right thing AT THE SAME TIME.
I worked in customer service, with a direct line to the owner, namely: his office, ten feet from the customer service center.
Why does this matter?
It matters because that's what REAL businesses do: park the tents right next to the trenches.
The owner could hear me talking on the phone while sitting at his own desk. More than once, I found he was listening when it mattered...not because he was suspicious; but, because he happened to overhear and he knew he could help. He was right there with us, keeping his finger on the pulse and his own skin in the game. He started this business in his bedroom because he didn't have a garage.
The turnaround rate in customer service was almost nil. Yes, that's a customer service department I'm talking about, staffed with Americans with medical benefits. It's full of loyal people who get to have the experience of making things right when, in this world, things inevitably went wrong.
Shipping orders of glass with hundreds of fragile pieces at a time for high-stakes events like weddings and birthdays is asking for trouble. After two solid weeks of full-time, fully-paid training, I learned a lot about how many details go into this work and how to head off every possible problem at the pass. Of course, there's no such thing as heading off EVERY problem.
When things did go wrong, there was no question: I got to deliver justice to customers. When it was not our fault, do you know what I got to do, time and again?
I got to deliver grace to customers.
I can't tell you how many orders I presided over where the company spent money, overall, to make that customer's special day possible after an order was placed at the last minute, or their shipment got hurled off the back of a truck. We had customers over a barrel all the time and we gave them a break instead of pressing our advantage. This is primarily because the owner was willing to sacrifice some gimme profits to make someone's event work out anyhow. I never heard him say, "That's not my problem."
I regularly spent two hours of a workday carefully crafting an email that explained a situation and resolved it at our cost. He didn't micromanage it and tell me to write ten words and get back to projects that were actually generating cash. He recognized the importance of putting in the work and serving the spirit of justice and he just...let me do what was right.
I don't want to gush too much, here, but it's been on my mind. Since I can still post, 😮🤣 I'm finally taking the opportunity to thank all of the wonderful people who run this place for being on a team I had the privilege of being part of for three years in the most backwards desk job I've ever had: an honest one. Glass With a Twist gives a damn, and I got to be the one who told customers as much and then put our money exactly where our mouth was. That's too rare, anymore (I've had some other customer service jobs where I was simply required to refuse, to lead on, and to outright lie.) Don't get me wrong: some customers never understood, and left with a feeling that a big business had ripped them off...it hurt my spirit the few times that happened on my watch, because I knew the truth.
They don't post on facebook too much...they're probably too busy making sure what really matters is the first thing on their plate, and facebook isn't really the first place people go when they're looking for engraved glass anyways. Keeping active social media accounts across the spectrum is a perk enjoyed mostly by gigantic corporations or a requirement of businesses that sell things people need every day, like restaurants. Most folks need engraved glass for special occasions and then they don't go out of their way to see news about it. GWAT really just keeps the page so they can face their audience, be reviewed in real-time, and announce the occasional promotion. I say "occasional" because the real promotion at GWAT is that they post their lowest possible prices as a rule, not an exception. That was actually the main complaint I saw from customers: that there wasn't a constant stream of sale events. Folks, you can't run a stream of sales unless your normal prices are exhorbitant or your products are poor in quality. There's no way around it.
So, I hope this post sits around for awhile, because I'm still friends with the employees and many of the customers I served, and that's just not something I ever expected could happen in a world where the bottom line rules.
There's only enough time anymore to choose between doing the right thing and making it look like you're doing the right thing...not both. GWAT chooses the former, every time. At least this once, they deserve some public kudos from someone who was on the inside. This is a company that tells one or two stories of regret--times when they couldn't find a way to resolve something--and continues to learn about why things went wrong those few times, continues to study its own mistakes and celebrate their successes without erasing the dark moments (we spent a whole day on case studies of past failures during training). If you care about businesses that care about this world, count Glass With a Twist as one of the good guys.
So, keep on keepin' on, guys. I miss you a lot and I'm sorry I haven't been back to visit. Up until I finally landed a role as a music teacher, this was the best job I ever had, from policy to community--and it only barely lost out against my actual dream job. I'm a picky social justice warrior type, so that's saying a whole lot.
Thanks for being YOU,
signed,
Dashel Milligan
