Jeff Gee’s Blog

Always Be Learning

August 14th, 2008

Our 17-year old nephew Kristian, returns to the UK today. It’s been a blast having him around. It’s great to see how other people do things. So we were walking around downtown Chicago yesterday and he’s taking pictures of everything and having to have a Quiznos sandwich, because there’s only one franchise in Newcastle Upon Tyne where he’s from, and he says to me, “You should turn off your computers in the office when you’re not using them.”

Of course I had to defend myself. Tell him that I need the one in my office kept on because I connect with it from home etc., etc. And he said, “but you don’t need everything turned on.” Then he got all UK’ish on me. Which is okay because I’m originally from England.

“At home in England,” he said, “we’re really good at conserving energy. We put the lights on only when it begins to get dark. We turn everything off when we don’t use it…” Then he turned to me and said, “In America you don’t have switches on your outlets do you?”

“No,” I said, “We just plug the thing into the socket.” In the UK the actual outlets have switches on them so you don’t have to unplug it, you just switch it off.

Then he started getting personal, “Our recycling bins are bigger too.”

“Oh no! I said, “They can’t be as big as the ones we have in Chicago. The big blue ones, they’re massive!” Which they are. In fact they’re creating all kinds of parking problems in our alley….but what a great problem to have–am I right, or am I right?

I think it’s wonderful. To have a conversation with a 17-year old lad from England about recycling and energy conservation. It’s better than eating chocolate.Well almost. So his last bit of advice to me was, “Find out which computers and equipment you can turn off in the office. Then turn it off when you leave.”

So that’s what I’m going to do folks. I don’t want America to lag behind in the energy conservation stakes. All the very best for a great day today. Rock N Roll Val & Jeff

Entry Filed under: Customer Service Training