Page 27 - CMA PROfiles Winter 2018

Difficult people often deliver information

that you would rather not receive, but it
doesn’t mean that they should be ignored.

brow furrowed, and said to me, “Oh, I don’t like this.
What happened here?” I imagine that everyone has
experienced a version of this moment. I was trapped.
No matter what I said, it was going to sound bad,
because the real explanation was that the work simply
AIMING TO PLEASE wasn’t perfect, that it was hard to do and we had come
Downs soldiered on with his unusually combative caller. After close, but we hadn’t nailed it.
he fielded a number of technical questions that the woman Furthermore, we weren’t going to do it over because we
asked in what he considered to be a distrustful tone, Downs couldn’t guarantee that it would be any better the next
decided to invite her to come to his shop for a tour. While time (leaving aside that we didn’t have time and that it
she didn’t agree right away, he got an email two hours later would cost quite a lot of money). I directed her attention
suggesting a day for her visit. to all of the parts of the table that were, in fact, perfect,
She showed up with her company’s CFO, and Downs gave and I guess she decided that it would have to do, because
her the shop tour, which took about an hour and covered the we then proceeded to move on to the specifics of her
company’s process in detail, including the types of wood used project, and when she left I was under the impression
and the shop’s major equipment pieces. It was at the end of that we had passed the test. Squeaked through, maybe,
her visit that Downs experienced the conundrum that led him but we made it.
to write the column. Downs took this single, striking encounter and used it as a

They finished the tour with a stop in the photography area, learning experience for himself, his team and the readers of
where a completed table was waiting to be documented his NYT column.
before being shipped out to its new home. The complex “I had the weekend to mull over this experience,” he told his
design featured an oval top with solid maple edge, plain readers. “I was, frankly, spooked that a client had anything
maple top and an oval curly maple center panel. other than raves for our work. We have had almost no

“The plain maple was set at an angle across the top to form negative feedback regarding our craftsmanship from our
a giant X-pattern,” Downs explained in the post. “The grain clients for the last couple of years, while we regularly get
continued across the dataport lids.” These complex features emails saying how much better the work is than the client
were not easy to execute, and there was one small issue he had expected.”
had noted: But of course, things sometimes do go wrong, and he

There was a very slight misalignment between the oval decided to share the story of the Very Picky Customer at his
center panel and the adjacent maple panel. It was less Monday staff meeting. He suggested that they go and see
than 1/64th of an inch, but you could feel it if you ran the table, and he told his employees the story as they stood
your hand over it. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t perfect. I around it.
had no qualms about shipping this table, as it was within Several important pieces of information came out of the
the bounds of what I consider acceptable, although meeting, as he described in his post:
closer to the edge than I like to be.
• “It turned out that it was the shape of the center panel
Of course, our very picky client found the flaw that had caused the problem. The pointy oval didn’t allow
immediately. She ran her hands over it repeatedly, the guides on our machines to function with their usual

CABINET MAKERS ASSOCIATION 25