Loyalty

Recently, I spent a night in Copenhagen. Next morning, before taking a cab back to the airport, I walked the streets of the neighborhood where I had stayed, enjoying spring flowers and well delineated sidewalks and bike paths. At the airport I dined on a couple different smorrebrods and a nice pint of beer before boarding the plane.

An acquaintance was in Copenhagen as well. He spent more time than I did, and traveled around Denmark a bit. I was struck by a comment he made after his trip: That not once had he been asked if he had a loyalty card or phone number to punch in, or anything else related to getting a deal for being loyal.

Tipping is not common in Denmark, as well as many other countries, and the commercial sphere is refreshingly free of add-ons, "upgrades", giving data or money for discounts or the like. Pricing is transparent, and wages are high enough for those providing services that tips are not a necessity for making a living, as here in the USA.

Since, I have been thinking about loyalty. If you have to punch in your phone number or pay a membership fee to receive a product at a discounted price, why is that called a loyalty program? Who is loyal? You are, of course. You are loyal to a purveyor or brand. But are you loyal because you are receiving an excellent product or service at a reasonable price? And why should you pay extra for that? Why is the price for the product or service not accurately tallied and displayed?

Recently, I stopped doing business at a local coffee shop. It's a long story that I will not provide here. Be in touch if you really want to know. The reason I stopped buying coffee and bagel sandwiches there can be distilled to poor customer service by the owner. Some of my close friends laughed to hear that I had placed now a second coffee shop in town on my banned list. Don't get me wrong: I am not banning anyone from using either coffee shop. I have made this decision only for myself to not spend my own money there, and let those friends and colleagues I might otherwise have met there for coffee and a sandwich know that I will meet them elsewhere. They are certainly welcome to go to these coffee shops without me whenever they like.

We make our individual decisions about loyalty and loyalty clubs and where we will spend our money based on our own internal workings. I personally go out of my way to include people, to try to help people feel welcomed, and so when I do not feel welcomed, I simply decide I will not give my hard earned money to those people who do not welcome me. It's pretty easy math.

I find myself, a year after my mother passed, considering often that I used to say, "My mother is a difficult woman," rather than just, "My mother and I have a challenging relationship." It takes two. But to a degree, there is a truth there. My mother was indeed a difficult woman. One afternoon as we were on a leisurely walk, my "big sister" cousin told me she would never go out to eat with my mother again. My mother was an excellent cook and a keen critic at a restaurant. The food was too cold, or overcooked, or had a hair in it (my father once said, half joking but half serious, as he and I watched my mother quietly pull a hair from her eggs at his favorite breakfast joint, "It only would happen to her.")

My mother complained about people, and about situations, and especially about the food she paid money for in other places. But when my mother died, the entirety of her final evening here was spent in a hospital bed drugged and unresponsive, and surrounded by family and friends who loved her fiercely- perhaps not quite as fiercely as she loved us all. My mother was possibly the most loyal person I ever have met, or ever will meet.

As I grow older, and particularly since my mother's passing, I find myself identifying with her in certain ways. Once a good friend who was my employer at the time called me a "hard bitch." My inner circle still jokes about me being a hard bitch sometimes. But we all know I have a heart. I become a hard bitch when I don't like the way I see someone, any other living being, being treated poorly, hurtfully- especially if that being is one I love, respect, or care for. I am like my mother, fiercely loyal. And neither one of us ever has or ever will require payment or a punched in phone number in order for us to prove it.