My friend Garrett

Yesterday I had my car state-inspected at my local Honda dealership, where I always go for any type of car maintenance. The reason I remain a loyal customer, aside from my (stupidly) pre-paid oil changes, is that Stevenson Honda truly does have fantastic customer service, and I value that. I totally sound like a commercial, and I don't even have the annoying charm of Pat and Ashley and their unwitty banter. But it's true.
Very occasionally, I feel slightly ripped off at Honda, and when I say ripped off, I mean that relatively, because pretty much I always feel ripped off with any type of car maintenance--you pour thousands of dollars into this *thing* that depreciates the second you drive it off the lot, and the least it should do is go for like, 10 years. But I digress. When I say I feel ripped off by the car dealership service department, I only mean that the "labor" charges seem a bit much, and I might have gotten the part or whatever cheaper had I the time, energy, and know-how to shop around. Which I don't, at least for the know-how. Anyway, though, I couldn't be happier with "my" car place. Largely, this is due to the guy who works there, Garrett, who totally and unequivocally knows what he's doing. And, he's polite. Like, unfailingly. Garrett is so polite that yesterday, when I was a good 20 feet from the Service Entrance door with K.Lo and her stroller, and Garrett was about to go in the Employee Entrance door, he changed his route just so he could hold the door open for us. That is so...nice.

Always calm and personable, Garrett's always on top of whatever's going on, even when no one else has a clue. It's kind of amazing, overall, and I just wonder--why is that so hard? I mean, in most of the service jobs I have had, the systems were either too complicated, too uninteresting, or both, and I can't say I always knew what I was doing. In fact, at Verizon Wireless, I rarely knew what I was doing, which is a whole 'nother ball of wax. But I always tried to be... decent. Nice. Everyone has their moods, it's true, but it's kind of too bad overall that Garrett is, more than anything, a rare bird.