Dana Dittmar- Exec. Director, Lake Neccudah Chamber of Commerce
You, Me and Business
Last week I was out doing an early morning racewalk with a Debbie Caneen, Business Development Director at Lakeside Living Center. It was warm and balmy, but damp with fog and impending rain. As we headed back, I had the sudden sickly feeling that Husband might have locked the door as he left; he was leaving much earlier than usual for a four-day business trip to Colorado Springs. Sure enough, as the first drops of rain began to fall, I realized the dire consequences of not taking my keys with me. I had no phone, no access to the house, no way to feed the cats, get a shower, brush my teeth, or get to work. Did I mention he was going to be gone for four days?
Fortunately, Debbie is a great friend, and she drove me into Boulder where we caught up with Husband and get his key. We were both soaked to the skin and late to work, but imagine if she hadn’t been with me! At that moment, I knew I needed to have an emergency back-up plan so this never happened again.
My initial thought was to find some place to hid a key outside, but even with phony rock-look key holders and multiple potted plants, I just didn’t feel the key would be all that safe. Any good burglar knows where to look. I could have asked a neighbor to keep a spare for me, but what if they weren’t home when I needed it? That’s when I came up with the idea of hiding a key outside the door of a neighbor a couple of houses down! If a burglar found the key there, it wouldn’t fit the neighbor’s door and they wouldn’t know which house it did fit. My neighbor could then hide their key outside MY door with the same scenario. Brilliant!
Back up plans can save us so much time, wasted effort and frustration. But often we don’t have one in place until after we need it. Admittedly, it’s hard to think of every possible crisis and develop all contingency plans. But it’s worth taking the time to sit down with the spouse, co-workers, aging parents, siblings, and neighbors and round table everything from hurricane plans to emergency slush funds to phone trees in case of an emergency. Who hasn’t heard since birth that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? (You have to love Benjamin Franklin. Any man who also said “Beer is God’s way of showing us He loves us” is a genius!)
So, when Husband gets back from Colorado Springs, we’re going to take some time, think through some possible worst case scenarios and put some back up plans in place. Because if we missed him in Boulder we couldn’t have caught him and I would have been sitting on my front porch in the rain. For four days.
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