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February 7, 2005

Consider It Done

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I spent last week in Nashville at a trade show for the Christian Booksellers Association. I stayed at Gaylords Opryland Hotel, a sprawling hotel where walking from one end to the other constitutes a major workout. They actually said their fitness center is not very large as they feel everyone works out just walking around.

It was not my favorite hotels for one reason. I loathe manufactured fun. This is why my children will someday be seeing a therapist since they have never been to Disney World or Disneyland, and will not get there on my watch. I hate places where the fun is programmed to happen.

Opryland houses gorgeous indoor gardens under an atrium. Palm trees, beautiful foliage and wonderful flowers fill the hotel. Sounds nice, right? Well, it would be if they did not then take it over the top. There were waterfalls all over the hotel, which means there was a constant whoosh whoosh whoosh noise that just made me crazy. I was having a meeting on a bench near one waterfall that was programmed to whoosh on a system that I could not time. The woman I was meeting with and I kept jumping every time the water shot up. I felt like I was at Bellagio in Vegas, minus the choreographed Frank Sinatra tunes. (In case you are wondering, Vegas is another manufactured fun place that makes me crazy.) Then there was a boat road through the "river" in the hotel where folks were paddled along by a guide who pointed out fish, flora and fauna. I love boat rides in the real outdoors, not the manufactured outdoors!

The hotel rooms were dark, the hi-speed Internet cord was short and there was no outlet behind the desk to plug in a laptop. I decided this is a better vaca hotel than a business hotel!

All this said, they had a feature I loved the concept of. If you dialed extension 102 they would answer the phone "Consider It Done." Whatever request you had, they wanted you to know you could "Consider it Done." It got me thinking how nice it would be to have a "consider it done" button for every aspect of your life. Considering how long most of us spend on hold and then doing battle with the cable, cellphone, other utility companies, as well as insurance companies, banks and doctors, think how nice it would be to hear "Good morning, and thank you for calling and consider it done." Though I did not request brighter light bulbs, an extension cord, or a pin to close the drapes in my room that were open that little sliver where the lights outside my window made me feel like I was living on an airport runway, I liked knowing there was someone standing by to fulfill my every whim. For the record, they got A for wakeup calls since I was unable to figure out how to program the CD alarm clock in my room!

Did lots of reading while I traveled, which I will explore in the next Blog entry.