“I have always depended on the incentives of strangers.”
Three days ago I called my property management company. I said my windows wouldn’t close and my door lacked a knob. They said the same company would service both. And that company would call me.
Yesterday I emailed my property management company. I said the window/door servicer hadn’t called. They replied that if I didn’t hear by 1pm I should tell them.
At 1pm I emailed the property management company, “They haven’t called me”.
At 1:04pm, the window/door servicer called me. He said, “We can come by tomorrow afternoon”.
I said, “Tomorrow at noon is good”.
“After noon,” he corrected.
“What time?”
“After noon”.
“Can you do at noon?”
“We can do between noon and four.”
“Can you do noon?”
“My team has other jobs they’re doing. We can do tomorrow between noon and four or between two and four”.
“Can you do between noon and two?”
<Pause> “Yes, we can do between noon and two”.
—
An hour later, I called him back.
“It’s Julian Wise. We scheduled for your team to come tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
“Can we reschedule to Monday?”
“Yes. I’ll call you tomorrow or Saturday to schedule a time.”
“Thank you.”
—
This experience feels quintessentially New York to me. Here’s how:
- Someone has a very specific set of constraints they’re not willing to budge from. They’re not un-reasonable, just very specific.
- When you keep poking, they hold their ground. They’re trying to help, just constrained by unseen forces. (Their scheduling software? Their team’s unpredictability? Poor foresight skills that their behavioral systems compensate for?)
- When you find a creative solution, they’re open to it, just within their world. (If he can do between noon and four or between two and four, he might-should be able to do between noon and two. He just didn’t realize it, but is open to it).
- When schedules change, we accept this immediately. Is there anger that we spent 15 back-and-forths only for me to reschedule him? Of course not.
This particular culture makes sense to me. Perhaps it’s the impact of its brand of economics, but I do well in cultures of high diversity and high commerce. In these environments, culture tends to evolve out of commerce: highly accepting, so long as you figure out the economics.
And I enjoy economics.
—
In other news, my super knocked on my door yesterday afternoon. He asked if my sink worked. I said only one of the three does. He offered to swing back to fix it. Is he bored? Does he want another slice of pizza? Is he curious whether another $50 is coming his way if he helps?
Hard to tell. But today he fixed my kitchen sink and left with a slice of pizza in one hand, a soda in the other, and a smile on his face.
Julian Wise 