The Mustard Bomb

My dad and mom owned a family business of one type or another for most of my at-home life.  My dad painted houses with my uncle and with my grandfather, and then he and my mom owned a hardware store together. The biggest success they had, however, was with the general store they ran together for 22 years. I began working in that store when I was 11, and I worked there with varying levels of frequency until I graduated Clemson in 1994.

My dad is what I like to call a quiet teacher. In other words, he won’t speak his lessons….he lives them, so you learn by watching. I love that about him. The man has little to no temper to speak of.  My mom, on the other hand, has a fiery temper. I inherited a pleasant mix of both, and when I was younger, I let my temper get the best of me with a customer in their store.

We sold the best hot dogs in town. It was my dad’s chili recipe that sold them, and people ordered them all day, every day.  The first order usually went out at about 6am and we didn’t stop until the machine was broken down and cleaned at 8pm each night. This particular day, a lady came in and ordered a hot dog from me. I didn’t want to be there….I was probably 13 or 14 at the time. I was half-listening, and so I didn’t make it the way she said she requested it.  She wasn’t very tactful in the way she voiced her displeasure and it embarrassed me in front of my mom. So, what did I do? I took the hot dog from her, and threw it into the wastebasket by the register, splashing chili and whatever else was on there into the air, and made a scene. Under my breath, I called her a not-repeatable name, and went back to make her another hot dog.

She explicitly asked for “no mustard.” Being the jerk that I was that day, I decided to give her "no mustard". I found a hot dog bun with an air pocket in it. Then I filled that pocket with mustard. I nicely wrapped up the hot dog and sent her on her way. I smiled at the thought of her biting into it and how suprised she would be to find a big ole' mustard bomb.

I know for sure that somewhere down the line, my dad heard about this incident. He never mentioned it to me, but I just know he knew about it. But, what did my dad do? He kept showing me how to provide good customer service. By the way he talked to his customers, who sometimes yelled at him or acted foolishly. By the way he smiled and wished every single person a nice day even if they hadn’t ever spoken a kind word to him. By the way he extended credit to people knowing he’d never get paid. He wasn’t a push-over. He just couldn’t call himself a good man if he didn’t allow them to purchase diapers for a newborn baby. I guess those uncollected receivables made up his pro-bono portfolio in the end. But his customers were loyal, and they trusted him to do right by them.  And he did, every single time.

Family businesses have this dynasty-feel to them. We feel like we are building something to leave to our children, or maybe even to our grandchildren. But a dynasty is more than a building or a sizable inheritance. I learned how to reason with an angry customer who knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that he's right; I watched my dad agonize over pricing his inventory when he knew that the local farmers' crops didn't come in as they'd hoped; I saw my dad sweep up the dirt around the gasoline pumps so that the asphalt was as clean as possible; all of those experiences taught me that owning a business is often difficult, trying and not very glamorous.  My dad’s store eventually closed when he and my mom sold it, but he had left me a dynasty. He had shown me everything he did to run a successful business. He empowered me to do exactly the same thing.

The family business is a powerful example.