2,334.9 miles.  That's how far my family and I traveled for Christmas.  Against my better judgement, all of those miles were by automobile. You learn a lot when you're out on the road. You learn that the cheapest gasoline you'll find for 400 miles is the one you just passed thinking that prices must be better at the next station. You learn just how long it takes for liquid to pass through your three year-old son's body, and you learn some pretty interesting things about customer service.

We stayed two nights on the road. The second was a gem. We switched rooms because the air conditioner had little, well...I'll save the details. It was pretty bad. The night clerk was nice enough to give us another room, even though she claimed, "we're pretty full." I think we were one of maybe three families in the hotel.

I hate convenience stores. When you're on the road they become necessary. Most we found to be down right repulsive. However, one Quik Trip outside of Atlanta caught my wife's attention. It had to be one of the cleanest convenience stores I'd ever seen. I noticed it right when we pulled into the parking lot. It was clean, the inside of the store was clean, even the RESTROOMS were clean. Clean RESTROOMS in a convenience store? These people must have missed the memo.

How, I wondered, did they keep the place so clean? Then my wife drew my attention to a survey card. The card wasn't at the counter, or near the gas pump. It was in a stall in the restroom. Wow! They put the survey card in the worst possible place I thought. Everyone knows that convenience store stalls are horrible. This Quik Trip was going against the grain. "Hold us accountable for our cleanliness." That's the message I got loud and clear.

In confronting the brutal facts that cause our service deficiencies, we often feel a little uncomfortable. Can you imagine the feedback that the manager got we she decided to put these surveys in the restroom stalls. Brutal I bet. But, in confronting what's causing your service to be less than stellar, you take a stand. You say "no more." Take a walk outside your comfort zone. Sit in the waiting area a while without any identification and watch what happens, drop in at midnight, talk with a patient to find out what they really think, or, put survey cards in your restroom stalls. Take a stand. Your patients deserve it.