Recently I got my normal early morning start…up early, some computer work, wrote a couple of articles, and headed to the gym. After the gym, I had a couple of errands to run but felt a little hungry after lifting all those heavy weights.

Because I’m conscious of eating healthy, I decide to zip through Taco Bell and grab something with some nourishing protein in it.

I pull up to the menu board and can’t find any of their breakfast food on the menu. About that time a little voice says, “Welcome to Taco Bell, order when ready.”

I’m still trying to find breakfast on the menu. Finally, I speak back into the little box and say, “Hey, I can’t find the breakfast menu.” Crickets.

I’m thinking, ok they must be busy, so I’ll just pull around to the window and order. I pull up to the window and the worker opened the window. I say, “Hey, what’s for breakfast?” She says, “We’re not open.”

I say, “What time do you open?” She says, “8:00.” Oh, ok…I pull up to the exit driveway and look at the clock on my phone. It’s 7:59.

I wonder, would she have been fired if she had said, we don’t open until 8, but it’s only one minute early so I’ll take your order. Or, I guess she could have said, drive around the building and you will be on time.

This reminds me of when I was a new car dealer. Back in those days, we opened the service department at 7:30 am. There would be customers lined up outside the service doors waiting for the doors to open. The service writers would be inside standing at their podium getting ready for the day and staring back at the customers.

“It’s 7:25, hey we’ve got customers, let’s open the door and get them on their way,” said no one ever.

Of course, you can imagine when Tommy hit the building, he’s screaming, “Open the door and take care of our customers.”

Now, what do you think the pushback was when I chatted with the service director later in the day about this hot topic?

“Boss, if we do that, we are training the customers to show up earlier and earlier.”

OMG, what a horrible thing that we train the customers that they can count on us to exceed their expectations and get them on their way lickety-split.

Does one-minute matter?

Maybe not to you and the Taco Bell bunch, but it matters to me and your customers. That’s all I’m gonna say. Tommy Gibbs.