Companies you love to love

We all know that there are companies we simply put up with. Others we hate. Some we love, but learn to put up with and ultimately degrade into a hatred. It happens. Time marches on and customer service goes down, priorities shift, things simply change and it goes from good to bad to worse, on occasion.

Back in college, I had a trusted adult in my church that ran a mechanics shop. I could call him and tell him my car was making a noise, describe the noise, and he would diagnose the issue and suggest solutions, over the phone, with no visit to his shop. As time marched on, we continued to take our vehicles to him for help and repairs. As his company grew, so did the dissatisfied service provided, until the day that we had to leave and find another mechanic. Sad. But it happens.

On the flip side, how often do you fall in love with a company, get treated well initially, but as time marches on, they treat you better and better? Think to yourself, list out the times that this has happened to you. I'm betting that it is not often that this happens. I can think of few examples myself. However, as the title of this post suggests, I have one such example.

Lets talk about "this Company"

Years ago, as a young Database Professional, I heard of a company that had a simple tool that compared databases. This wasn't rocket science, but it did prove handy from time to time. I used the tool, more and more. As the company made progress, they made the tool better, and soon branched out into other tools. I do recall thinking that this was a mistake, that doing too many apps or tools would cause them to loose focus, and the tools I had grown to love might suffer, and the company, like so many others, would go down in my eyes. I have been involved in a few different levels as an outsider with this company. I even made a little money for doing usability testing on various products. I had used the product, and they wanted to know some information from me, and I freely gave that information. The payment was a bonus, I thought. I woulda given the info to help out. But was glad to get something back from them. In fact, the motorcycle gear bag I won now, and have used for many years, was purchased using part of that money. It made it easier for me to put in the rest of the money on the bag myself. I think about them every time that I ride and enjoy using that gear bag. Ironically, its red. Not because of anything other than it was the best looking bag at the store at the time. But I find it funny that it's red.

So the days, weeks, months and years march on. I continue to try out products, continue to use the old standard apps and tools, continue to simply use what they have produced and love it. So many times one of their tools has come to my rescue and helped me out. 9 months ago I finally took the time to dig into the API and write an app (a feat which i had almost forgotten from my developer days) that generates snapshots from all the databases on a server. Simple task. However using their tool saves me tons of time from manually doing it. And using the API saves me even more time. Minutes compared to hours. Recently I purchased a monitoring tool that has given me the peace of mind that something is always watching my database, and will let me know when or if something goes awry. Being a single DBA with no NOC to watch my systems, this has greatly improved my life and as mentioned, peace of mind.

All this is praise for a job well done, and should be expected of a company providing tools and apps and simply trying to sell their wares to us. However, this company does a bit more. They interact with the community and you as an individual. I have many stories that I could tell you. Some of them involving some funny situations. Find me someday, and I will relate them to you. The best involves a bio break + phone call. But the one I wish to relate today is the personal touch that they perform that affects me and my life. They reach out and in a way no other company ever has, touches you. They make sure that you know you are important to them.

The actual Story

The story is simple and short and happened in the last couple days. A few months ago I received a package from RedGate that contained some swag. One of the items was a lanyard. My son saw this and wanted to have it. He transitioned it into a school badge holder, which he wears to school every day. Monday of this week he participated in a school play, and was proudly wearing his Red lanyard along with his play costume, which comprised of a few pieces of gold material around his wrists and head. I took a picture of him in this getup, with the proud smile. Since he was wearing the lanyard, I figured I should share this with the twitterverse, letting RedGate know via hashtag. Her is the picture.

This photo is me just showing my support for my son and by extension for RedGate.

A day later, I received a picture from RedGate that showed that at least 10 people were thinking of me and my son and wanted to touch us from across the pond. Here is that photo.

How awesome is that!?!?!? Have you ever had a company go out of their way to show their support for you in such a fun and silly manner? Simply having a good time, but at the same time, making that connection that we have both forged over time that much stronger. I owe each of these individuals a hug or a heartfelt hand shake, which ever they feel most comfortable with. I bet though, by looking at the that way they responded, they'd opt for the hug.

Way to go guys. You made quite a few of us happy today with this response, and I can't wait to show my son later today what you've done for him also.

Thanks.

You already have my loyalty and appreciation and even a bit of my and my companies money. This is simply over and above. And we love you for it.

a Bus drove through my neighborhood. Really! THROUGH it!

Not SQL related. But ME related.

I came home from work yesterday, and noticed the neighbors at the end of the cul-de-sac were all standing around a hole in their fence. I don't remember there being a hole in the fence... Beyond the hole, I could see bits and pieces of wood. Seems odd that they would be tearing out a small section of fence and replacing it with vinyl. So I wandered over, and met another neighbor along the way. Asking him what happened, he smilingly teased me with various options that could have occurred, slowly revealing the story as we approached the carnage. Into my neighbors back yard we walked, noticing a trail of destruction. Grass was chewed up, bits of concrete and old fence wood littered the area as we traversed the backyard. People were milling about, as if they had all become afternoon construction workers. Stuff was everywhere. Piles had started to form and I could only slightly make out what had occurred. Apparently, a bus crashed through my neighbors' yards in our cul-de-sac earlier in the afternoon. The driver had finished dropping off kids, made a wrong turn, and then, well, we don't actually know why, but went into my neighbors yard, thru their fence, down their hill, taking out their obviously offensive shed minding its business in the corner of their property. After dealing with the shed, the bus decided it hated the fence on the back of this neighbors property, and went thru it. Now it had more area to hate, and proceeded to hate a couple trees, and the corner of that property behind my neighbors. Was the hating bus done? No! It saw another fence that it hated, and killed it too. There, it stopped hating, and sat on its haunches, waiting to be pulled out of its newly acquired parking spot. The driver exited and entered the bus a number of times, and no one knows yet why this bus or its driver apparently hated all these fences.


Here's the local news report.

No children were on the bus. No children were playing in any of the 3 yards where the hating bus traversed its seeds of destruction. No one was hurt. Just stuff.

We were blessed.

kids are amazing

Our first two daughters pregnancies and births were fairly easy. Our last child, my son, was a bit more difficult. After a bit of time, we realized that he had some problems with his hearing and wasn't reacting like the other two kids did. At first we thought that this was because he was a boy. Turns out he needed tubes in his ears and was delayed developmentally.

Well, fast forward a few years and a lot of extra classes and time spent with him by his wonderful mom, he has caught up with other kids his age.

I just got to sit and watch him and his church class perform in front of the other primary kids. He did an awesome job and participates and communicates and its just so great to see him being a normal boy. I recall the frustration and awkwardness he had previously. Its just so neat to see them grow up and become their own confident real humans.