Sunday, April 15, 2012

Sometimes you can't tell...

Sometimes you can't tell when you get a whim and when it's a prompting.  At my job I do a LOT of event planning.  It involves making sure there's a nice room available for various programs and meals, audio visual equipment set up, making sure lecturers have all their handouts available, having spares of everything, and most of all, making sure all the catering is perfect.  I have my choice of caterers, and I have my favorites.  For lots of events I use the hospital caterer, they do a great job and they're reasonably priced.  But for special events I use Katharine's French Bakery.  They have a way of combining some really simple ingredients into delectable (but still simple) meals.  But it's not just the food, it's the really exceptional service.  Most of the time they send a man named Luis who bends over backwads to make sure everything is EXACTLY the way I want it.  And although I know I am not a difficult customer, I am no pushover.  The nice thing is, when Luis is there I know that he will be as fussy as I am when it comes to presentation, freshness, quality, and timliness; I don't have to worry because he does an outstanding job.  And on the occasions that I've gone to a location and found that someone has removed the tables that were set up, if Luis has shown up I find that he has scoured the area and found replacement tables.  Not bad considering he's not even a University employee.  But he knows what I like and he knows what good service is.

Anyway, all of this is just to say that the man has really impressed me and I've enjoyed working with him.  Well, last week I found out that he and his wife are expecting their first baby, and I had a fairly strong feeling that it would be a good thing to make them a small baby afghan. Like my title says, sometimes you can't tell if a strong feeling is just a whim or if it's a prompting, but what the heck.  I'd like to give it to him as a token of my gratitude for his hard work (and thankfully I am authorized to tip pretty generously with my company card when I pay the invoice, too.)  But we've also had a chance to chat quite a bit over the last seven or eight months as he's been the caterer that I've worked with for all of the fancier events I've planned, and I know he doesn't have a lot of extended family nearby.  I think every baby should have at least a couple of hand-made items to snuggle with, so since I had some leftover yarn this afghan was pretty quick to stitch up.  I hope they enjoy it.  My next event where I'll see him is at the end of the month, about a week and a half before their baby boy is born.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

How generous of you, Susie. But that's you.