Ronald R. Johnson (Customer Service Representative)

Today's episode will begin in three minutes. But first I want to tell you about something crazy I'm doing for my new book, five Mere Christians. I've never seen an author do this before, but I'm giving a money back guarantee on this book. I'm so confident you're gonna love this book that if I'm wrong, if you pre order the book, you don't love it, I'm gonna send you a $20Amazon gift card as a money back guarantee. Why? Two reasons. One, this is a different book for me, right. I know this is a very different biography. What is Jordan Rayner doing? And I know it's risky, so I'm going to de risk it for you. Because listen, in my other books, Redeeming youg Time, the Sacredness of Secular Work, Master of One, etc, etc, I am telling you and me how we can glorify God in our work, but in five Mere Christians, I'm doing something very different. I'm showing you what that looks like practically through these unforgettable life stories of five Mere Christians from history. These are the top men and women that I would love to have on this podcast today if, you know, they weren't dead, right? So that's the first reason this is a risk and I'm gonna de risk this book for you. Here's the second reason. I'm just confident you're gonna love this book. My friend Mark Batterson said, quote, five Mere Christians proves that biographies can be extremely entertaining, profoundly helpful, and mercifully short. If you're looking for a book that combines the punch of a great sermon with the pace of a great thriller, this is it. Highly recommended. End quote. But here's the thing. In order to qualify for this money back guarantee, you got to do two things. Step one, pre order five Mere Christians in any format, hardback, ebook, audiobook, whatever. And then step two, go to 5merechristians.com and fill out the form on that page and that's it. But you got to do it by midnight Eastern Time on May 9. By filling out that form, you'll also get all of the pre order bonuses listed on 5 mereChristians. Calm and be entered to win this crazy, epic trip for two to Europe. So visit 5merechristians.com right now to sign up. Now, please enjoy today's episode. Hey everybody. Welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast. I'm Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians? Those of us who aren't pastors or religious professionals, but who work as paralegals roofers, and video game designers. That's the question we explore every week. And today I'm posing it to Ron Johnson, who has more than 20 years worth of experience working in one of the hardest jobs on the planet, the job of a customer service representative. I love this guy. I love his story. I'm so excited to share it with you. In this episode, Ron and I talk about how he came to embrace a job he once hated and really view it as his calling. We talked about how to have a real time three way conversation between you and God and those you work with. And we talked about what managers can do to truly bless their frontline employees, including customer service reps. Guys, I think you're gonna really love this great conversation with my new friend, Ron Johnson. Ron Johnson, welcome to the podcast.

Thanks. Great to be here.

So we should clarify in the front end that you are the Ron Johnson. That's right, Ryan, the one and only. Because as our listeners know, actually, it wasn't too long ago. No, we had the other Ron Johnson, the Ron Johnson that Steve Jobs tapped to create the Apple Store. By the way, did you listen to the episode by.

I did, yes. Yeah.

Do you know Ron?

No.

You should get to know each other. An amazing episode.

Yeah.

The Ron and Ron Johnson Show. I was telling you before we started, I love your story and I can't wait for our listeners to hear it. Let's start here. I think this is a good place to start. You got your PhD in philosophy, right? Taught for a few years, you were unable to secure a tenure track position. Talk us through that season of your life and what was going on with you personally and professionally.

Well, it was really hard to understand what God was doing because I went into the doctoral work fully convinced that this was the way God was leading me to go. And now in retrospect, I can see that it was. But it was, you know, when you're going a certain way and you think this is the way God is going to do it, and you've got your mind set on a certain trajectory, and then God ends up doing what he said he was going to do, but in a different way than you were expecting it then. At first you just really got to do this gestalt shift and rethink. What does this mean? And so it was a very painful time at first when I realized I had to go back to doing what I had done before. Working in a call center by day and then teaching at night at the college level. It was very difficult trying to figure out what God was doing. But to kind of back up, there's a backstory there, Jordan, that you may not know. I didn't mention it in the book that you had read. But all of my life, ever since I was a teenager, I had this idea that God wanted me to be his man on the ground. And I got that when I was in high school and I read the Robe, the novel by Lloyd C. Douglass. And it's a story about the. You know, it's all fictitious, of course, but it's the story about Roman centurion who won Christ's robe when they threw lots for his robe and so on. And as part of his story, what he goes on to do after he becomes a Christian, he has to go into hiding because the emperor is after him. And he ends up living in a little village in Italy where they grow melons. And he becomes the private secretary of the guy who runs the melon grove. And there's this whole chapter then about how his presence there just transforms the way they do their. And how they get along with each other and the community and so on. And I read that, and I thought, that is what God is calling me to do. I'm going to be God's man on the ground. And, you know, whenever I told anybody about that, I'm still just a kid in high school, you know, they said, how are you going to make a job out of that, you know? Well, I ended up getting a bachelor's degree in history, and I was going to go on to graduate school and so on. But in the meantime, then as a young adult, I ended up doing lots of things. I was a plate maker in a printing company. I was a produce guy in a supermarket, a substitute teacher in the public school. I sold advertising for suburban newspapers. So I was really the opposite of your book, you know, master of one, you know, I was just really doing all kinds of little things, you know.

I was. Me, too, at that age. Yeah.

Yeah. But I was still in all those things, though. My one thing, though, was developing, and that was finding God in everything you do, you know. So in each of those things, I did, I did find God, you know, and I was experiencing each of those things with God. I got to Western Union. That was my longest stint. I worked at Western Union. I started out doing telegrams and money transfers and so on, and I worked my way up to operations manager. And then by this point, I had a master's degree in education, and I got an opportunity to get my PhD in philosophy. So I thought, great. So I quit the job as a manager. I went to graduate school. I had this all figured out that God had called me. I was going to then go out and from this professorial role, I was going to tell everybody what God had taught me about life out in the world of work and so on. And then, like I said, I didn't get a tenure track position, and my wife and I had just had our first child. I taught for a couple of years, but then in the year 2000, I didn't have anything at all lined up for the fall. So I was desperate. I just had to go out and get a day job. So I got a day job as a customer service representative for a bank. And like I said, it was soul wrenching. I could not understand what God was trying to do. And then I eventually began to realize what God was doing was exactly what he had said he. He was going to do, but just in a different way. I was going to be working a day job in customer service, and I was going to be teaching and writing at night. Wasn't what I had planned, of course, isn't what anybody plans when they get a PhD, you know. But I accepted that temporarily believing that this was what God had called me to do. Now that temporary situation now is at 22 years, by the way. But I came to understand that what God was doing was making me exactly the person I wanted to be, God's man on the ground. And that yes, I was a professor, and yes, I was able to teach and speak and write books and so on, but I was also doing it by day, doing the things that I was talking about. And really the outgrowth of this is then the book that you mentioned, it's Customer Service and the Imitation of Christ, where I went into a lot of detail about what it's like trying to be God's person in a customer service call center. And I understand you spent some time working in a call center, didn't you?

Okay, I'm super impressed that you know this, because I was thinking about this. This is really funny. I was prepping for this episode. I'm like, I don't think I've ever talked about this publicly, but yes, I did. I mean, a very brief stint. I can't remember if it was high school or college. It was during a summer here in Tampa. Me and the best man of my wedding, this guy named Josh Heicholtz. Yeah. We worked in a call center for two months. And it was brutal. I hated it. I'm reading your book and I'm like, oh, My gosh, I wish I had had this perspective on the craft of customer service when I was there, but I didn't. I was an arrogant little 19 year old. What, however old I was, I don't know. Right. And I load that. So for those who have never worked this type of job, Ron, paint a picture of what makes this job so hard and then we'll talk about the good things, the other, the flip side of that coin and how you've come to embrace that role as a calling. But start with how most CSRs, customer service representatives view the job that they have.

Yeah. So first of all, even though you're on the phone all day, it is an extremely lonely position because you're in your cubicle, you're on that phone and there is nobody else to help you. And you got this person coming in who may or may not be yelling at you. But regardless of whether they are, they're bringing a procedural issue or something that's gone wrong with their product or service or whatnot.

And they don't call thanking you for how great the product.

That's correct. That's right, yes. And you've got a script you've got to follow, even though every single call is going to be different. And you've got to find the script. So you basically, you have online tools in front of you, and while you're listening and you're talking, you're multitasking, you're typing search words and trying to find the answer to what they're talking about. And then you've got to read off the script of what that answer is, but do it convincingly, like you're not reading right. And you've got to do this all within. Usually you're given a goal. A standard goal in call centers is 300 seconds. You've got to do it in an average of 300 seconds or less. That basically comes out to five minutes. And that may sound like a lot, but if you've got a person with a complex issue and you've got to solve this issue, you've got to follow the scripts, you've got to do it all and get them off the phone within 300 seconds. And I should also say the reason why this is also important is then you have monthly meetings, sometimes bi monthly meetings, with your team leader who goes through all the stats and everything is recorded. They've got your calls recorded, they've even got your screens recorded and they're analyzing. Why did you go to this screen? Why didn't you go to this other screen? Or why did you use this search word rather than that one? And then, oh, well, you said the word probably. You should never say probably or you said, unfortunately, you know, so all of these things. And you've got to think about all of this because you're going to be evaluated and you're going to be scored. They do it all in numerical scores. You're docked for this or that. You know, you've also got to go to lunch on time. If you don't go on time, then you get docked for that. But you cannot hang up on the call you're on if that call extends into your lunch. So all of these things are pressuring you. You got to think about all this stuff. And the poor person on the phone, they don't know that they're calling you with a problem and they want you to listen to them. And they don't realize you're not really listening. You're thinking about half a dozen other things and trying to get all those tick marks that you're being evaluated for and, you know, thinking ahead to your next session with your team lead.

Yeah, this is like, I think you use the word soul wrenching. That feels apt. That feels like a good description of this. And listen, like you admitted in the book, you admitted a few minutes ago, this is not the work you wanted to do.

Right.

You just had to get a job. But eventually you say in this terrific book, you came to embrace the role of this incredibly difficult job as a calling. What happened? What was that journey like to real? I mean, you've been doing this now for 22 years. I imagine you, you've had opportunities to do other things, but you've stayed. Why is this a calling?

Well, because I began to realize it's a spiritual practice for me now. And it became that very soon into it, I began to realize this. It just flipped my paradigm of what it means to be a Christian. You know, Jordan, before I did this job, I rarely ever had anybody ever, you know, curse me for any reason. And then suddenly now I'm having it happen all the time. And then. And suddenly that brings a whole new light on Jesus saying, bless those who curse you. And I realized as a Christian, I never really had to deal with that before. And now suddenly it's my everyday reality, you know, and other things like that to be able to turn the other cheek. How often do I really. Every once in a while, you know, we as just normal people in living normal lives, maybe somebody will do something that'll insult us or hurt us or something. And we have an opportunity to turn the other cheek. And maybe we'll actually, you know, be very grandiose about that and think, oh, I'm turning the other cheek. Well, this job really forced me to live out my Christian principles in a way that I never had to before. And I soon began to understand that's a gift. Not only that, but it was also an opportunity for me to practice what I call the three way conversation. I'm not only talking to that other person on the phone, but I'm also listening for what God is telling me in each call. So like I said, it became a spiritual practice, an opportunity to practice the presence of God in intense situation. I had never had to before for eight hours a day. And like I said, it was a gift.

I remember in every good endeavor that Tim Keller co wrote with Kathleen Alsdorf, Kathleen said she started to see her work, she was a tech executive as a crucible where God was pounding and grinding and refining me. Right. You know, most people don't encounter tons of opportunities to love their enemies, but I think that's what I'm hearing you say like you started to realize that this job was a means of cultivating your sanctification.

Right.

That was good that God was working. Is that right?

Right, absolutely.

And practicing the presence of God. And I want you to go a layer deeper on this three way conversation. I love this. This is. And guys, by the way, I want to say the book explicitly. I'll say it at the end, but it's called Customer Service and the Imitation of Christ. It's this extraordinary little book that I like, thoroughly enjoyed. I crushed it. So you talk about this three way conversation with a customer. Obviously a two way conversation between the customer and the customer service rep. The three way being the customer, yourself and God. What in the world did that look like? Does that look like practically for you?

Yeah. So you know, I say it's a conversation, but what it really ended up being was just recognizing God's presence. So really practicing the presence while you're having a conversation with, with the people on the phone. Because what I discovered was I just did not have the patience or the compassion to deal with a lot of the stuff that was coming my way. But I recognized that God did. So I would go into a state of prayer before I would start my shift so that I'd be recognizing, believe it or not, God is in this place, this what I would consider God forsaken place in this cubicle with me. God is here with me right now. Whether I recognize it or not. And so just trying to recognize it, just trying to be aware of that fact. Then I start taking the phone calls and as I'm listening to the customers, I've got kind of an eye towards God and saying, okay, what are they saying? How can I help them? How can we help them? And it really became a case of. There was a lot of background too, with looking again at the scriptures and looking at how Jesus had compassion for people who came to him and how the crowds pressed on him and time constraints and the disciples were always trying to hurry him. And Jesus had time for every single one of them and listened to what they were saying and gave them what they needed. And that became for me, the three way conversation. Lord, how can we help this person? How can we bless them? What can we give them before we get them off the phone?

I love that you pointed out, I never thought about this before, how in the Gospels, Jesus wasn't begrudgingly serving people.

Right, right.

It was his joy. You pointed to one passage, I can't remember where it was, where you talked about how Jesus said he wanted to heal somebody. Share that with us real quickly.

Yeah. So there was a leper who came to Jesus. And the book of Leviticus is very clear. Lepers are supposed to stay out of town. They're supposed to stay away from everybody. And if anybody comes near them at all, they're supposed to warn them by saying, unclean, unclean. That's in the law of Moses. So that's the law. And Jesus knows that. And here comes this leper who's actually approaching Jesus and coming to be healed. And, and if it were any of us, especially if we know the law, then our response would be, hey, what are you doing? This is not the right thing to do. And Jesus, he came up to Jesus and he said, if you want to, you can heal me. And Jesus reached forward, touched him and said, I want to be healed. And that became really a paradigm for me as I began this adventure as a customer service representative. And I realized, you know, in my heart, at first, my response was, I don't want to. I don't want to be here at all. I don't want to be here.

I do it because it's my job and I have to, but I don't want to.

Exactly. And then I just began, you know, metaphorically looking into those eyes, looking into those compassionate eyes of Jesus every day and just thinking, you know, he wants to and he's not here in the flesh, but I am. And I'm his representative. So I want to be your vessel, Lord. And I want to, as long as I'm in this job, you know, I want to be your means of blessing each of these people. And so it really became an adventure for me just seeing how that all plays out.

I love it. How did you build that habit of recognizing God's presence in the day to day grind while you're sitting there at your computer? I would imagine that's a hard habit to begin developing to remember that God is with you in that moment.

Yeah. Full disclosure. You know, like I had said before, I've been practicing this since I was a teenager. Even in high school, I practiced the presence of God and it was just very aware of God with me in the classroom. And even as a professor, you know, when I'm up in front of a group of students, I'm very aware that I'm not alone. So I've had a lot of years of practicing this. Jordan, you know, any of us who are serious about practicing the presence. But I will say that there was a distinct difference when I started this because like I said, you're very, very isolated when you're in that cubicle. You're aware that you're being listened to to, you're being judged, you're being criticized, but nobody's helping you. And you know, so. And my wife is an accountant.

But mine's true. How about that?

But I'm not a practical kind of person, you know, I mean, I'm a philosopher.

Yeah.

You know, so it just was really ironic that I ended up in this. And to be honest, a lot of the questions that they came, I did not have the background or the common sense to even understand how banking worked or what the questions were. So I just really threw myself at the mercy of God and I was just very, very aware. Basically, it comes down to this. I was terrified. I was absolutely terrified and therefore was just throwing myself at the mercy of God every day when I signed into this.

Yeah. I know a lot of people when they hear something like this concept of a three way conversation, Right. They're scratching their heads and asking the age old question of like, all right, well, like how do you know if that third person in that conversation talking is the Holy Spirit or just your mind wandering? Right. Like, how do you answer that question? How do you discern what's from the spirit and what's not as you're talking with customers? Ron?

Yeah, and again, you know, I have to, in a way, you have to be, I guess I have to be A little bit apologetic that I have over 50 years of experience as a Christian and it takes time, it does take time. And you sift and you learn, you know, by your mistakes. But I would say that you cannot ever count on hearing the voice of, of God if you're not reading the word of God in the scriptures and trying to get used to that voice. And I know a lot of this is metaphor. When we say the word voice, you know, do I hear voices in my head? No. But what I do is listen for what God might be telling me in this particular case, based on the things that I have learned from the scriptures over the years that God wants us to do. So, for example, you know, it's not a lot of content, you know, that this voice is telling me, you know, to do this and this. But the main thing, the main thing that I got from all this was just to learn how to calm down angry people. That was a big part of it. And, you know, so just little things like, just little things like, Ron, your voice is too tense. Calm down. You know now, you know now. Yes, that's my conscience. That's my mind. But it's a mind that's trying every day to be in tune with the spirit. Yeah.

It's a mind that's shaped by the word of God. It is renewing your mind.

Right.

Giving you this posture to seek to bless even irate customers.

Right.

That's what you're trying. And really it's I think a lot about. I'm so glad you pointed to the word. Right. And we can't hear God's voice if we don't read his word. The Spirit. It brings to mind the word and helps us connect what we're reading in the Word to the day to day circumstances of our life and work.

Right? Yeah.

You mentioned the book that if we are engaged in these three way conversations, I forget exactly how you put it, but basically we should be expecting to do miracles through our work. Explain what you mean by this.

Well, especially in customer service, as I said in the book, I've never had anybody come to me and ask me to heal them. But every single day I have people ask me to perform customer service miracles. And what it sounds like when that happens is I've talked to five other people and they couldn't help me. Can you help me, by the way?

Not just CSRs, experience. I mean anyone at work experience, entrepreneurs experience this. Hey, I've tried three other solutions. None of them have worked. What makes yours different? Can you solve my problem? Yeah, Right.

Yeah. And so, number one, then, you know, the first thing is, how am I going to do that? You know, five other people have failed at this. How am I going to come up with anything better? You know, that's how I used to feel. You know, I mean, like I said, I didn't even know banking. So I really began with a sense of wonderment. How am I even going to come up with any kind of solution for this person? So part of the miracle is that, yes, there are answers. Other people miss them, but. But you can find them with the help of God. The other thing is that at least in my work, and especially when I worked in a smaller bank and I was able to build rapport with people in back offices who could help me then that's what I referred to as different kinds of customer service miracles that I was able to do then. Different people who had fallen through the cracks. I could reach out to some of our support systems and I could say, hey, this person, you know, has such and such issue. Is there some way we can help them? And one of the things I talk about in the book is that a lot of times we csrs, we customer service representatives, fail to successfully reach out to business partners because we come at them so intensely and do not understand their work that they have to do. So part of the miracle, I guess, for me has been learning what other people in my company do, what they need from me. If I come to them with a request and, you know, as God teaches you those things and you learn to how to work effectively with people in the back offices, I have found that you can get things done for customers that at first seem impossible.

Yeah. And also, as Christians, we have unique resources here. If we believe that the creator God, who created 17,500 species of butterflies, dwells inside of us.

Us. Yeah.

Then we should be the ones most confident in our ability, through the power of the Spirit, to find creative solutions to problems. Like, yeah, I've heard about this before in the context of Daniel. Daniel, chapter two, right? All the wise men are coming to the king to interpret his dreams, right. Even though he won't tell them the content of the dreams. And they were like, nobody can do this. This is impossible. But Daniel goes to his bodies and say, hey, we're going to pray and ask God to reveal this to us because he can, Right. Like, he understood that those followers of the one true God have the ability to do the absolute impossible at work. We can do miracles not in our own strength, but through the strength of God and That should empower us to be very bold. Right, Ron? But you know, Ron, as I was reading your book, I was thinking about kind of the management dynamic in a business powered by customer service reps. And your managers are always trying to optimize the productivity of their teams. You talked about the 302nd goal.

Right? Right.

You, as a customer service rep, especially as a Christ follower, you want to serve the customer as best you can.

Right.

So there's a tension here.

Right.

As Christ followers were called to serve our employers with excellence. See Ephesians 6, Colossians 3, etc. And we're called to love our neighbors as ourselves. So I'm curious, like, do you feel that these are competing priorities? And if so, how do you work through that tension?

I did feel they were competing priorities at first, but I've worked through it in a couple of different ways. The first thing that I had to work through was the realization that I am called to love and serve my managers right along with everybody else. You know, that was the first thing. But then over time, I began to realize that if you're really doing this right, there doesn't have to be that big of attention. Like I said, when I started out, I didn't know anything about banking and so on. What I've learned over the years is that the better you are at what you do and if you know what you're doing, you know, even though there's all these scripts and so on and search words you have to look for and all I know the procedures now. So the more you know, then the more you can take a deep breath, relax, speak with a calm voice, but a reassuring voice that tells the person you're talking to what I'm going to tell you, you can trust. Because I know what I'm doing.

It's like technical mastery that leads to the mastery of the softer things.

That's right, yep. And so, you know, and then so basically, you know, for the past several years now, I've been, you know, top of the board and my managers love talking to me and I love talking to them. And, you know, we're all on the same page. We're all trying to do the same thing. It's just the difficulty is when you don't have that technical mastery and you're thrust in this position, it can be heart wrenching and you just have to, you know, really rely on God to help you try to navigate. For me, in those early years, it was very difficult and there were times when I really did have tense moments in My evaluations because I wasn't meeting the time goals and so on, you know, so I've been on both sides of that. But, you know, my advice to anybody who is starting out in a role where you're feeling that way is, you know, just try to take a deep breath, try to trust God, and, you know, learn your job. Learn your job. That's right.

Possibly can, right? Because mastery wins the respective outsiders. This is master of one. Speaking of which, I think a lot of people, Ron, have a hard time seeing how, I don't know, seeing how their work matters in the grand scheme of things, in the grand scheme of eternity, if they're not explicitly sharing the gospel with their coworkers. I think that's a challenge. If you're a CEO or a customer service rep, how do you personally think about the eternal significance of your work as you go to work day in, day out as a csr?

Well, I see it, first of all, as being, you know, an extension of Christ's work. He's not just talking about himself here. He's trying to bring us abundant life. And I really do focus on extending his work through my own. You know, I've especially noticed since COVID started, and we were before that, we were all in cubicles, and then suddenly, massive effort, they packed us all up and sent us home. And so then I started working from my home in my den, talking to customers. And I immediately found that I had new resources with my voice that I never had before because all the ambient noise of that big call center was gone. All the other people in the other cubicles that I had to talk over was gone. Suddenly I had the ability. I could talk very softly and bring my voice way down, and people could still hear me. So now when I was getting customers on the line and they were screaming and yelling, I could speak softly to them, and I could calm them down. And, you know, so many people were coming on the line because of COVID and I need my money, and, you know, it's locked up. I can't get into a branch. And I could just calm them down, and then I could give them the answ. You know, I could help them, too. But first I could calm them down. And it really became, you know, clear to me in 2020 when all this started, that, man, what a gift to be able to calm people down in these desperate times. And, you know, then, yes, if you can tell them about Jesus too, that's, you know, icing on the cake. But just to be able to be his peace in this world and to be able to. And then I guess while I'm on that subject too, you know, I do this all day, Jordan. And that's when I hang up the headset. It doesn't end there. So then when I go out and I'm talking to my wife and my daughter and even our pets, you can still speak calmly. You can still be the calming influence when things are so hyper around you and you go out into the community. And the things that I've learned in this job are skills that are transferable into everything else you do. And they're basically Christ following skills. And that is go out and share the peace of Jesus Christ with everybody you can. And sometimes you'll be able to do it in words, you'll be able to tell them about him. But a lot of times you just do it in your tone of voice or in the way you treat people and in the gifts that you're able to give them.

It's so good. I think when people initially hear, oh, as a customer service rep, I'm continuing the work of Christ, they scratch their heads like, what are you talking about? Jesus made tables. He preached the gospel word. Indeed. But this is such a concrete, terrific example. No, no, no. Like we're doing Christ's work when we are a non anxious presence in the world showing people an alternative story where there is peace and there is joy and there is contentment and there is love. And that is the work of the Lord. Right. That is 100% the work of the Lord. Hey, I was thinking about, we've been talking a lot about the role of the customer service rep. I want to flip the tables a little bit because there's a lot of people listening who are customer service reps like you. But there's also a lot of people listening who are CEOs or leaders of divisions of their companies that are powered by customer service reps who are believers. I'm curious, what can they do? Bless the customer service reps in a distinctive Christlike way?

Yeah, they can do a lot. In fact, you know, I worked for a number of companies without ever moving. Our bank kept being bought out by other banks. So I've gone through that transition. Yeah. And I have seen differences in the top down leadership. And I've worked for companies where the directive from the top is productivity. And they are not talking about customer service when they are talking about being productive. They're talking about making money, making sales. And so get them off the line as fast as you can, but try to transfer them to somebody who can upsell them, you know, that kind of thing. And currently, at least now, I'm very, very fortunate that I work for a company where the people at the top are totally aware of the customer and they want to do what's best for the customer and the stockholders and so on. So it really does set the tone for the people below them, and then the people below them can then set the tone for those below them and so on. Like I said, I've been in situations all along, from the beginning. There's all this talk about servicing the customer, but the difference comes in, what are we getting from the top? What kind of signals are we getting from the top about how important the customer is and how much time we're supposed to spend on the phone trying to help them. Them. And if you've got, you know, if you've got a leadership who is willing to bite the bullet and say, you know, we do have financial considerations, we've got to remember, but that customer is important and we need to focus on them, and they really mean that. And then they, you know, they'll do what they can to support the managers under them who also believe that it can really make a difference throughout the company.

I. Ron, you know the drill. We wrap up every episode with the same three questions. Number one, which books are you recommending or gifting most frequently these days?

Well, Paul Turnier was a Swiss physician who wrote a number of books about his Christian faith as a physician and as a counselor and so on. My favorite one of those is something called the Adventure of Living. And he talks about how he believes that God birthed each one of us with an instinct for adventure and that that instinct is best lived out and expressed through our vocation.

Interesting.

Yeah. And that. That is a book that most people have not heard of, but it made a huge difference in my life. Another one that probably most people have not heard of is a Bible study book by Cyril Barber, a guy who, for a number of years, I think, was teaching at Fuller Theological Seminary. And it's a commentary on the book of Nehemiah, but he relates it to daily life on the job and lessons that we can learn from Nehemiah. Yeah, and those are, you know, those are two books that I very heartily recommend.

I'm surprised I didn't hear you say Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence of God.

Oh, well, yes. Yeah. Well, there. There are all kinds of. Yeah. And the Imitation of Christ, too, while we're at it. Yes, there you go. Yeah. Yes.

I'M serious. I've been recommending your book Customer service and the imitation of Christ. It's one of those books. I mean there's not a lot of reviews on Amazon, right? So it doesn't like stand out on a search result page. But I read it, I'm telling you, I crushed it and I loved every word of it. I thought it was an exceptional book. Hey Ron, who do you most want to hear on this podcast talking about how the gospel influences the work that mere Christians do in the world?

Well, I've got a couple of ideas. Lowell Bucenitz. His last name is B U S E N I T Z. Lowell Bucenitz. He's a guy used to work with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and so on. He teaches now at University of Oklahoma and he co founded their center for Entrepreneurship. He's got a book book coming out in a few months called Soul work and something near and dear to your heart. It's about entrepreneurship and I have not read it yet, but I'm looking forward to that. That's supposed to come out in a few months and I think he would be an interesting guy for this program. Another couple who works together, Laurie and Drew Frelich, last name is F R A L I C K. They live in inner city Detroit and they co pastor right now a planter church in Detroit. But they have just a very interesting story. Laurie works for, she helps marginalize populations. She does like contract work and things trying to help get organizations going I guess in the inner city. Drew is a mental health counselor but they both Laurie and Drew used to live in China and they are both Christians, you know, who felt that God was working through them even while they were working in China. And incidentally, Drew was a standup comic and actually got the first comedy club started in China. Just very, very interesting people who I think you'd have a great time talking to.

Man, that's a great suggestion. First comedy club in China. That's a claim. Ron, what's one thing from our conversation you want to reiterate to our listeners before we sign off?

Just that you don't want to miss the adventure. I almost did. You know, I was going to go into really the cloistered life of being a college professor when I didn't even realize what was waiting for me here. There's an adventure out here. All you have to do is just ask God to be part of it and I hate for you to miss it.

Man, I love that. Ron, I just want to commend you for the terrific Christlike work you do every day for the glory God, the good of others. Thank you for reminding us that every good endeavor can be an opportunity to imitate Christ and show his love just at like a very practical level day in, day out. And thank you for showing us a glimpse of what that actually looks like even in one of the hardest jobs in the world. Guys, I mentioned the book a hundred times. I promise that there's no affiliate link here. I just love the book. It's called Customer Service and the Imitation of Christ by my new friend the Ron Johnson. Ron, thank you so much for joining us today.

This has been great. Thanks for having me, Jordan.

Man, I hope that was an encouragement to you all. If it was, do me a favor and go leave a review of the Mere Christians Podcast wherever you listen to show you'd be shocked at how important these reviews are. By the way, I'm not going to bore you with why, but just trust me when I say going to Spotify, going to Apple, wherever and leaving a rating and a review of the show is a big, big deal. I'd be so grateful for you guys doing that. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in this week. I'll see you next time. Hey friends, this is your last chance to claim all the amazing pre order bonuses for five mere Christians before they go away at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time on May 9. I've never offered this many pre order bonuses on a book before, so when you fill out the form at 5merechristians.com. Number one, you're going to be entered to win an incredible trip for you and a friend to tour CS Lewis's favorite spots in Oxford, explore Ole Kirk Christiansen's former stomping grounds at Lego headquarters in Denmark, and much more. Number two, you'll be invited to join my first ever interactive reading, culminating in a zoom call with me and my co author on this book, Kaylee Cox. Number three, you're going to be getting a money back guarantee to try the book risk free. And number four, you'll also get access to a free course I'm not selling anywhere called how to write a book 10x faster and better with an Affordable co author Author. You can claim all these bonuses in just two simple steps. Step 1 Pre order 5 mere Christians in any format you want. It can be hardback, ebook, audiobook, whatever and you can order it from wherever. Doesn't matter to me. STEP 2 Go to 5merechristians.com and fill out the form of that page and that's it. I'LL send you all those bonuses. You'll be entered into the sweepstakes with one simple form submission. But hey, don't wait, wait. All of these off, all of these offers, all these bonuses, they're going away at 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time on May 9th. So visit 5merechristians.com right now to claim your bonuses.