I had been convincing myself of that for most of eighteen years.
Alder Home Supply came to us in 2013, nine years before the meeting in the conference room. Victor landed the account, which is what Victor did. He had lunch with the regional operations director of the time, a man named Garrett who retired two years later, and he sold the Morgan Freight Coordination story with the particular warmth he’d always had: family company, personal attention, we answer our own phones.
The personal attention landed with me, because the personal attention was me.
Diane Keller became their operations director in 2015. She was careful and systematic and communicated in a style I recognized as professionally direct, which is a category that includes both people who are rude and people who simply don’t waste each other’s time. Diane was the second kind. She told you exactly what she needed, expected exactly what she’d been promised, and sent a brief email of acknowledgment when something was handled well. Not a thank-you card, not a phone call — a three-sentence email. I saved every one of them.
We built a functional working relationship over seven years. She knew how I handled exceptions. She knew I responded to emails within four hours during business days and within twelve hours on weekends, which I did because I am who I am. She knew that when she called with an urgent problem, I would tell her immediately what I knew, what I didn’t know, and when I’d have a complete answer.