By: Matt Langemo
What do you value? Your family? Your home? Your car? A new pair of socks? Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens?
How about giving a crap?
Normally I’d ask you to “pardon my French,” but actually according to Dictionary.com, “crap” is late Middle English, likely from the Dutch word “krappe” which is anything cut off or separated. As I type this, it makes me wonder to myself, “Self, if ‘crap’ is anything cut off or separated, and we ‘give it,’ is it like we’re re-attaching it to whatever it was originally separated from?” And then, of course, my mind wanders to other difficult-to-answer questions like, “Why don’t you ever see the headline ‘Psychic Wins Lottery’?” or “How can you tell when it’s time to tune your bagpipes?”
I digress. Back to Giving a Crap.
At All-Terrain, we’ve had four values for many years. They are on our web site if you care to look, and all our team is aware of them and should be able to recite them by heart. We do our best to live by them, and they guide everything we think, say, and do. https://allterrainfargo.com/values/
As we continue to look at ways to improve ourselves and our company, we consider a lot of ideas. One concept that has become clear and will fix a lot of small issues is if we simply care. If we care about the work we do and how we do it. If we give a hoot. If we give a rip. If we give a crap.
Examples include double checking an address before we perform a service there. While I’m sure non-customers appreciate when we dethatch their lawn, they’re not likely going to pay for it if they didn’t request the service. And while we do have a “Give Back” value, we are a for-profit business and so do like to get paid for services rendered. Another example might be closing our garage doors when our trucks leave for the day. It’s not free to heat or cool our shop, and we’d like for as much of that investment to stay where it’s intended as opposed to sharing it with Mother Earth.
At this time we don’t plan on officially adding “Give a Crap” as value #5, but just know we’re working on it. I hope you Give a Crap about something. If it’s your lawn and we can help, please call us!