Sometimes I get thrown a curve on my Meals on Wheels route. I get shorted a meal. One or two new clients have been added since I delivered the route last week. The city is doing some street work and I can't figure out how to get around the detours.
I apologized recently to one of the clients on my route for being late and began giving a long detailed explanation. She wasn't interested. "Don't worry," she said, "none of your customers is going anywhere." She was right, of course. One of the criteria to receive Meals on Wheels is the client's relative immobility. And as long as I'm still close to the lunch hour, that should be sufficient. My first deliveries are almost always between 10:30 and 10:45 and the last deliveries between 12:00 and 12:30.
Since realizing that my clients aren't going anywhere, I've felt less pressure to "finish on time" and more freedom to actually talk with each of the clients. When I asked "How are you today?" in a sincere way, several of them have opened up to me and expressed gratitude that I would ask.
Like I said, life throws enough curves at me without my having to add more of my own.
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