Last week, as the temperature rose into the eighties, a group of us in the corner started wondering if we could get our fair share of the air conditioning. We called a local HVAC company and they sent a guy right over. He poked his head above the ceiling tiles in a few places then went off to look at our air conditioners. Upon his return, he told us we needed new stuff. Six thousand dollars later, we had NO AIR CONDITIONING instead of the poor cooling we'd started with.

These guys came back every day to work on it. On the Thursday before the Independence Day long weekend they stayed until 7:30 in the evening. Still, when we returned to work on Monday, we had no air conditioning and the forecast was for the temperature to get to 85. They finally got it working by mid-afternoon and the building cooled off nicely.

I can't help but project myself into the position of the owner of the HVAC company. I have no doubt that his technicians are competent and well trained. I'm sure they don't often take a situation from bad to worse while burning thru a customer's money. But it does happen. I get call from my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers from time to time informing me that, in spite of our commitment to "first do no harm," one of my guys had done some harm anyway. I do all I can to make it right. I can't get back any lost time. I can't recover any lost business. But I can own the problem and work to ensure it doesn't happen again. Sometimes I can do things to offset the inconvenience. I can only do that if I know about the issue.

I'll write to the owner of this company and tell him about our discomfort during these hot days. His response will determine if we ever call his company again.