Our Forgotten Customer

This Sunday I drove my wife to the airport to conduct our Advanced Customer Relationship Skills programme in Durban. She battled to hold back the tears as she waved Jenna, our 23-month-old, goodbye. The prefect Mom was about to be separated from her toddler for the first time ever. Back home I went about entertaining, feeding, bathing, and settling my little one all on my own for the first time ever. It was the best 3 hours I have spent this year. I tucked her into bed with a lump in my throat.

Spending a good chunk of quality time with your kid is one thing. But this time Jenna was totally and completely dependant on me for absolutely everything, and I experienced first hand the mighty responsibility that our women take on - and the immense rewards (and often frustrations) they must feel in caring for our children, something most women do instinctively and expertly.

It is so easy to take the role of a mother for granted while going about the important work of striking deals, sending emails, managing our pay-cheques, attempting golf, playing in the traffic and so on. Mostly they're doing all this too (usually minus the golf) - and taking on the considerable responsibility of motherhood.

We've learned how to "wow" the external customer and delight our internal ones. How about the forgotten customer? - the one who makes sure that everything runs smoothly at home, that there's a hot meal waiting when the mighty hunter returns from the kill, the one who gets up in the night and settles the baby while the lion sleeps, the one who helps you to get perspective when a day at the office has gone wrong, the one whom we should be doing it all for....

There are plenty of Superdads out there. And great husbands (and boyfriends too!). Hope you're one of them - or if you're a gal reading this, that you've got one of your very own! I recommended a superb restaurant in my last newsletter. If you haven't done so in the past few weeks, there's a good chap...(any restaurant will do).

You may be going through that phase right now where you wish you had a forgotten customer to forget about! If you're fortunate enough to know or have known your parents, why not give them a thought. Despite all they didn't or couldn't do for us lets not lose sight of all that they did.

Paul du Toit (September 2003)