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I had to buy new tires for my boat trailer last week, and I had an experience that unfortunately I’ve had before.

I walked (with Noah) into a garage that sold tires, where the owner was helping an employee with a tire about 10 feet away from me. I stood there awkwardly (easy for me) for several seconds as the owner looked up at me impatiently and went right back to work. No greeting. No ‘Can I help you?’. Nothing. I decided to take the social initiative (hard for me) and said ‘How are you?’. Still nothing. As I watched it was obvious the other guy could’ve finished by himself. After several strange minutes of me trying to keep Noah out of everything he finally finished what he was doing, walked over to me and said, ‘Yeah?’. Seriously.

I decided not to leave just yet, and let him get me a price for the tires I needed. He was actually a few dollars cheaper than everyone else, which was immaterial because by then I wasn’t buying anything from him.

Here’s the kicker. As I left, he handed me his card. As I looked at the name the gears in my brain started turning and I realized I was distantly related to this cat. Seriously.

My point? You never know whose time you’re wasting. I was a relative (albeit a distant one), with money to spend, who knew exactly what I needed. I was ten minutes of easy money. I’ve spent over $1500 on tires in the last few months, so repeat business from me could be lucrative. I own a car, a truck, a boat, a utility trailer, a four-wheeler, and a mower, which adds up to 20 tires that will eventually need to be replaced. He needs me worse than I need him.

And it wasn’t that I was ignored. I can deal with that. What I can’t understand is someone who wastes my time. I had a lot of things to do that day (including buying tires from someone else) and little time to do them.

The moral of the story? Try this: when we disrespect someone’s time by wasting it, we disrespect THEM in the worse way. At RPC we still have room for improvement when it comes to not wasting people’s time, but we ARE passionate (almost to obsession) with keeping things moving and being good stewards of the time and attention people choose to pay us. And I personally try (and sometimes fail) to respect others by respecting their time.

Check out this post from Seth Godin for another viewpoint.

So, have you wasted anyone’s time lately?