Customer needs

I wrote once that, if possible, I always park next to shopping cart lots. This story is why.

Costco parking lots are chaos incarnate, particularly the ones in suburban neighbourhoods. They’re packed, people are stressed and impatient, and everyone is trying to navigate every possible corner to either get a parking spot, or to get out.

Now add in my dad.

My dad is helping me push our shopping cart out of Costco and into chaos, when he suddenly starts jerking the cart towards my right. I counter this by pushing us ever so slightly back to the left. This, of course, makes my dad upset.

“Hey!” he yells. “I’m going to the car!”

“The car is this way…” I say gently, purposefully choosing my words and tone.

I grab the last heavy thing off the cart and load it into the trunk. Once I turn back around, I notice my dad is already shuffling the shopping cart away—but not back to the shopping cart lots. He pushes it in between the two cars to my left, wanting to leave it on the curb.

I think about stopping him, but the last spat has drained me of all energy and so I get in the driver’s seat and just watch, and hope. Hope, alone, is not the best strategy.

As my dad pushes the cart forward, it gently taps the side mirror of one of the cars. I spring out of the car to my feet and rush over.

“Exactly what I was afraid of,” I yell, but not sure to who. My dad, probably not. Maybe my mom, who’s sitting in the backseat.

I grab the cart, double check our neighbour’s side mirror (it’s fine), and gently roll the cart back out.

“What are you doing!?” my dad demands.

“Taking the cart back.”

“It’s fine there!”

“Nope.” I say flatly.

“Why does it matter!?”

I want to tell him all the reasons. It’s placing your convenience over someone else’s. Could potentially put you in technical legal trouble. It’s simply rude. But I just say: “Carts go back into the cart lot.”

My dad gives up and shuffles back to the car. “It’s too far.”

And so, whenever possible, I now park next to those shopping cart lots. Because I know my dad will put the cart back there if it’s right next to him and it’s convenient. And it kills me to say it, but after he does it, I tell him, “thank you.”

I think he needs to know something: that I’m grateful, that he’s helpful, that he’s useful, or maybe all of the above.

I tell this story, and its influence on my rationale, to my childhood friend, Alan, over dim sum with my parents. He laughs, tells me that’s a good idea, and proceeds to refill everyone’s tea. First to me, then my dad, and then to himself.

“How much tea is left?” I ask him as he sets the pot down on the table.

“Maybe a third?”

The teapot is within my dad’s reach, and so he checks it, lifts the lid (as is customary for alerting staff to please come add water), but doesn’t wait, and immediately starts feverishly waving people over.

“Oh. You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?” Alan asks me.

I chuckle and nod.

Alan’s a special friend for a number of reasons. I believe he’s literally the first friend I’ve ever had, and I’ve known him since before I ever had concrete memories and knew what friends were. More importantly, it means my parents recognize him—even my dad. In fact, my dad seems most enamored by him, laughing while talking with him even if for no reason, asking him what he’s up to and repeating himself in the process. Alan doesn’t seem to bat an eye, and even seems to adjust on the fly.

“You are in Boston now.” My dad says, which is really more of a question. He’s also asked this three times already.

“Ah-yup!” Alan responds, and as eagerly as he did the first time.

Although he does his best to keep conversation going with my parents, eventually it’s just him and me talking. I think, for my parents, just being around other people sometimes is enough to make them happier.

“I would really like to pay for lunch today,” Alan declares once we’ve finished the last of the dim sum plates we order.

“No.” my mom blurts.

“Please? My mom says I have to.”

“No...” my says again, almost as if she’s whining.

“Let me pay,” I jump in, giving Alan a look and tilting my head a little. Throughout lunch, he’s noticed that I seemed to be orchestrating the entire situation, controlling my dad’s impulses and what not. I think he senses there’s more to my actions than whatever’s upfront.

I grab the black leather folder containing the bill and bring it to my stomach, hidden by the white tablecloth. Then, I extend my hand to Alan and flick my fingers inward. He picks up on it, hands me his credit card, and I slot it into the bill folder.

“Thanks for lunch, Dan,” he says with a sly smile, as I wave over an attendant to pick up the bill.

“Thank you for coming,” my mom says.

And then, as if he knows he needs to make up for what we just did, and also to be distracting, he pulls his chair closer to my parents and whips out his phone. “Hey, take a look at some photos of my nephew and niece!”

My parents and photos of babies are like kids and candy; show them a few photos and suddenly you have their full attention.

“Who’s this?” my dad asks Alan.

“My niece!” he responds. And then a slight worried look crosses his face as he turns to me. “He’s going to think this is my daughter, isn’t he?”

I chuckle. “Maybe. But he probably won’t remember this by the time we leave.”

Alan continues showing photos to my parents while I handle the bill. I’m a little marveled at how easy being with my parents seems to be for him.

“You’re better at this than I am,” I tell him, as we walk out of the restaurant.

“Yeah, but you’ve been doing it for longer. I just come and say ‘hi’ once every few months.”

“Restroom—” my dad declares, interrupting everyone and now we’re stuck waiting for him at the front door.

Maybe sensing my anxiety, Alan keeps going. “Also, he can’t get mad at me like he can you,” he says as we look at my dad. “He can dig under your skin.”

“Yeah,” I laugh, “‘cause he’s not your dad.”

Alan surprises me later with a text discussing something he learned in business school: a theory called “the job to be done.”

Harvard scholar Clay Christensen describes it through a story that I’ll paraphrase. One night, as the breadwinner, he comes home to his wife and baby kids, sees the house is a mess, and proceeds to help clean and tidy the place up, as well as make dinner. His wife gets upset.

His wife’s reaction seems questionable on the surface, until he realizes that while of course, she appreciates having someone help clean, what she really wanted—needed—was companionship, intellectual conversation, being around another adult. That was the real job he needed to do.

This theory is usually used to describe how businesses should think about their customers’ true needs. That’s what helps them build innovative products, instead of just giving people what they say they want, the classic example being Henry Ford and the Model T (if you asked people what they wanted, they would’ve said “a faster horse”).

Weirdly, this reminds me of my old tech job, where this is precisely what we were trained to do: dig through the pile things customers say they want, and suss out what the customer really needs.

But Alan doesn’t tell me this because we’re talking business or because product management is a discipline I’m familiar with. He tells me this because he knows I’m thinking about my dad, because he wants to challenge me to take the business discipline and ask the same questions: What does my dad really want right now? What’s his need? With him, what is the job to be done?

The thought sinks deep into my head for several days, only to surface again when my dad begins grumbling about something he seems to have always hated: taking showers.

My mom asks him to shower. He yells and says no.

I decide to try something different, pull up a chair, and sit down inches from his face.

“How about taking a shower, dad?”

“No.” he answers definitively. But then keeps going. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow? Why not today? You can get it over with.”

“I feel good.”

“Yeah, but you could feel great!” wanting to channel my inner tony the tiger. He doesn’t respond. “What do you think? I’ll help you.”

“No.”

I’m kind of glad he didn’t take me up on my offer. I think of helping my dad shower himself and I shudder.

“Some empathy is good, you know?” he mumbles.

I feel like I’m being slighted, but this doesn’t bother me. I almost tell him "yeah well some hygiene is also good" but I keep my mouth shut about that though.

“Okay. Tomorrow though, you promise?”

“Yes.”

And then some thought rises to the surface, and it compels me to take a course of action I haven’t done in a long time. “I’m gonna write it down.”

“Go ahead.”

Which is what I do; I pull out a notepad, rip off a sheet and begin writing.

Hi Dad! You promise to shower tomorrow (I even write the date) okay? Me and mom will be very happy! [smiley face thing]

“There!” I show him.

He nods.

And when tomorrow rolls around, he actually does shower. And he adds his own writing to the note. I did!

Thank you!!, I add to the note afterwards.

The next time I see him, I tell him that he looks good and that his showering has made the house smell nicer. I wonder if I’m going overboard with it, but maybe it doesn’t matter. Because I’ve noticed that after my mom takes a shower, she asks my dad if he’ll take one too, and he almost always obliges. And so I keep up the charade.

Sometimes I think I’m downright lying. Other times, I think I’m slowly uncovering whatever it is that makes my dad tick. Maybe it’s that he needs to feel some sense of pride, instead of being (rightfully) berated all the time. Or maybe he’s glad to feel part of the family, or maybe just that he’s not getting everything wrong all the time. I don’t think I’ll ever fully know.

Sometimes, I’ve learned there is no other option and I have to just control him. Like when he storms into a dim sum restaurant wanting to sit down. Except, our table’s not ready, so I forcefully hold him back.

“COME ON!” he yells, trying to pull his arm away from me. I don’t let go of his arm, or of my composure.

Or when I return with him from the bathroom, and I can see he wants to take a straight line from where he is back to the table, except that it goes through four back-to-back tables with their chairs back against each other. Trouble is coming, and he’s going to try to plow through everyone. I grab his shoulders and turn him to the side.

“Hey-unh!! What’s the big deal!? It takes so long to walk around!”

Doesn’t matter. We’re taking the “long way” that takes us an extra fifteen seconds. Oh no.

In these scenarios, the only path seems to be brute forcing him into coercion. But when there is another path, I try to have it on my radar. It takes effort, and I find I’m running very low on effort, and energy and patience, these days. But I have to keep other options on my radar. I must.

Like for the times when he comes out of the restroom and immediately places his hand on my shoulder for support.

“Did you wash your hands?” I ask.

“No.”

“Great,” I scoff. “Now my shirt’s gross.” To which I quickly rethink things and follow up with, “It’d make me happy if you washed your hands afterwards.”

“Okay,” he surprises me. “I will do that next time.”

I hate having to reframe every conversation, every request. But if that’s what my dad needs, then that’s what I’ve got to do. After all, I need my dad to be buying what I’m selling.