Today I had an experience of the sort I had long ago relenquished to a byegone era. I actually received prompt, personal, in-depth customer assistance from a real, live human. Having recently purchased and moved into a 30-year-old house in Albuquerque, I had been looking for a replacement for the broken lazy susan turntable in a kitchen corner cabinet. A Google search led to a manufacturer. The manufacturer’s web site listed among local distributors the Woodworkers’ Supply of New Mexico–a store I had last done business with in the early 1980s, while living in Kentucky.

I visited the showroom of Woodworkers Supply of New Mexico about two weeks ago. The lazy susan I wanted was not in stock, but the helpful salesman ordered one from the Wyoming store. It arrived at my house two days later.

The trouble began when I realized there were two distinct sets of instructions in the box, each of which failed to list or otherwise depict some of the parts that were included. Normally this would not have been a problem, but I had ordered a fancy turntable that had a mechanism enabling the user to elevate or lower the upper tray without tools and without having to unload the tray. After a couple of hours I had tried every combination of the parts and had settled on the obvious solution, but the tray would not elevate or lower. I finally sent a detailed email inquiry to the manufacturer. To my surprise, a person whose last name (an uncommon one at that) matched that of the company replied with advice to contact the Woodworkers’ Supply. I did so and was asked to bring the unit to the showroom today (a federal holiday).

Fully expecting to be told they could not assist me, I took all the parts with me for an exchange or refund. After fiddling with the parts for a few minutes, the customer support fellow assisting me placed a call to the warehouse part of the store. Within two minutes, an older fellow emerged from the back and immediately began assembling the unit in front of me.

“So you’ve done this a few times,” I said.

“Nope,” he replied, smiling. “First time for this one. Boy these instructions are garbage, aren’t they?”

Within five minutes he had the unit working and confirmed that I had done everything correctly, with one tiny exception that made all the difference. The gentleman politely ensured I understood this key point. An onlooking customer was so impressed with the unit that she asked its price and decided then to buy one for herself.

My cost for this surprising good service was standing politely with the helpful fellow as he told me several fairly interesting episodes from his two-plus decades as an electronics specialist on active duty in the Navy. As an Air Force veteran myself, I did not mind listening to a few stories, even hearing how superior Navy training was over that of any other military service. As a corporate trainer, I was especially interested as he recounted some of the best practices he had learned for training people on complex technical concepts and procedures.

“Know what kept all those seamen and petty officers focused during training?”

“No sir,” I said.

“Sex.” I’m sure I raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Yep. Can’t teach that way any more. Too bad, too, ’cause it worked every time.”

Sparing me the explicit details, he explained that back when nearly all the sailors at sea were men, training used sexual terms and images as mnemonic devices for learning everything from the meanings of wiring colors to assemblies to diagnosis and repair processes.

“When was the last time you got bored looking at a naked woman?” he asked.

He has a point. There are a number of time-proven methods for effective training. Clearly we could not employ this particular methodology in a government organization, but the notion of using a few attention and knowledge organization tricks to maintain interest and facilitate the formation and recall of relevant knowledge is worthy of frequent consideration when designing and delivering training.

I am confident that had this gentleman from Woodworkers’ Supply created the assembly instructions for the lazy susan, I would have had no difficulty assembling the unit, but I might have had some explaning to do with my wife!