Importance, and a van that isn't mini

What does it mean to do something important? What is “importance”? Am I important? 

This morning I dropped off our Gutovich Mobile 15 seater van for its first service. I pull up into the Chevy dealership, the service doors are closed with a big sign saying their system is down. Oy… The dealership feels like a ghost town. I’m reminded of when my eldest son and I went to Go Kart World, and because it was a weekday we had the entire park literally to ourselves for like 2 hours… Super awkward 😛 (my kid didn’t know though, he had an AMAZING time with no lines)

Sitting in the eerily empty parking lot I call Chevy. After 15 minutes or so of getting passed around on the phone I learn that their system has been hacked nationwide, and that every Chevy service computer system is currently not working. As the person on the phone is telling me to go home, the service doors begin to sloooowly slide open. A visibly anxious but friendly man walks out to me. In short: I’m going to be their guinea pig for the temporary “doing paperwork on paper” process. Hooray? 

Pulling into the service department/garage, if I hadn’t been told there was a problem I wouldn’t know. I smell the coffee, hear the pneumatic tools, and all the lights are on. My service rep apologetically walks me through the paperwork process that didn’t feel difficult for me at all. And he sends me on my way – where I’m writing this – for them to do the service.

The idea of “importance” works in relation to a defined system – a process designed to resolve in a specific way. Importance means: how much does altering this variable impact the outcome? If I don’t care about an outcome, I can’t say that I care about how parts interact. Therefore there is no importance. 

In my Chevy dealership experience, the outcome I want is a reliably maintained vehicle and to go about my business as seamlessly as possible. Chevy wants me to have a trust building experience, so I will continue to interact with their brand as much as possible. It’s a straightforward setup for a win-win: I get my vehicle (a tool) as invisible as possible (the ideal tool is to be an organic extension of the user) and they get my patronage. 

There are a handful of variables each party can control. I can be difficult or easy to work with, which is mostly in how much resistance I do/don’t put into working with them, and my tone of voice. Chevy can find solutions to earn my trust, showing that in spite of problems I can rely on them. Today, this Chevy dealer has done an AMAZING job to earn my trust in spite of a meaningfully difficult obstacle for their staff. What do you think could be important parts of this customer service interaction?

I’m using today’s service appointment as an opportunity to remind myself of one of the most important things I’ve learned about human systems: because humans aren’t perfect, any system we are part of will not work perfectly. But, even within an imperfect system – computers down, lots of tension – if we work together, humans can accomplish amazing things. 

I could have complained about waiting 15 minutes longer to get set up. I could have gotten upset about needing to write by hand on paper. I need to remember the context of this system: I get to use this miraculous engine with seats to move my family around. What would my life be like without the use of an internal combustion engine? Gratitude, my friends, is so important…

When we – humanity – work together, and remember that we’re on the same team – allowing us to work around the imperfections in whatever process we encounter – we can accomplish amazing things: like my having built trust in an American car company.  

Another example I’m sitting with right now: what about a face makes it look like a face? Can you draw a photorealistic version of your mother’s face? Probably not. Do you know what your mother looks like? If I show you 1000 photos, can you tell which one is your mom? Probably yes. If so, why can’t you draw it? It’s an interesting question…

Below are 4 sketches of the same real person. What about each of them impacts the way I perceive it? Why might one look more or less “normal”?

What is the system I’m working within, and what is it for? If I look at whatever scenario from 30,000 feet in the air, what are the important parts? The variables that meaningfully impact outcomes? Which of the above drawings would my worldview look like, if I had to measure it next to reality? I shudder at the question, the universe is a vast place.

Does it really matter if I have to wait a few minutes longer than I’d expected? That the process isn’t going 100% exactly the way I think it should go? That something costs 15% more? Maybe sometimes. Sometimes I forget that life as we know it would be literally impossible without the collective effort of humanity. There is a video by Milton Friedman where he explains that not a single person in the world can make a pencil themself. Even the simplest things we use daily are reliant on possibly 1000s of people, over 1000s of years of learning and development. 

May we all have the clarity to see where we want to go, where we are, and what we need to do to get there. And the wherewithal and emotional groundedness to enjoy the process, however chaotic it may be.