My hanko finally arrived from Japan.
SHORT STORIES
My hanko finally arrived from Japan.
Before I could even see it, I had to go through layer after layer of packaging.
An envelope. Protection. Another presentation layer. A handwritten note. A tenugui. A small gift. And finally, the hanko.
They could have shipped the same product with much less.
But somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t only unpacking a product. I was unpacking the pride someone had put into making it.
And that made me think about our own work.
The lesson is not to copy the packaging. That would be copying the form without understanding the purpose.
The question is: what is our equivalent?
How does a customer feel the care we put into our work before we have to tell them how much we care?
It might be the way we deliver a report. The condition in which we return a tool. The clarity of an email. The way we hand work to the next process. The five extra minutes we spend making something easier for the person who receives it.
And “customer” doesn’t only mean the person who pays us.
The next process is also our customer.
Pride in our work should leave traces.
If we have to explain how much care we put into our work, perhaps the work itself is not communicating enough yet.