My advice to any shop manager: Don't act like an incompetent idiot - tell the truth about the situation and apologize, even if it isn't your fault. Any time a person tries to 'save face' it only makes the situation worse.

Guess which place I recommend and which one I tell folks to avoid!

Beyond being poor business practice and a sure way to fail - exercising lousy customer relations isn't the way the Bible teaches us to live and succeed.

'Saving face' has nothing to do with living honestly. It's an exercise in ego-protection. Those who practice it fall into the appearance and category of the sleazy, greasy, unethical, low-class and incompetent, second-rate huckster.

The one, who in humility exercises honesty and assumes responsibility for unfulfilled expectations will be elevated in esteem and usually given the benefit-of-the-doubt in a less than desirable situation.

This extends to clerks who want to prove that they are 'as good as anybody who shops here;' waiters who defend poor quality of food or mistakes in the food order; service/repairmen who left your appliance in pieces a week ago saying they will be back in a couple of days when the part comes in...and you haven't heard from them since; on and on. It is endemic in our society.

It is an attitude of incompetence and poor quality that we used to attach to foreign companies and foreign workers. Now, I've found that if I want something done quickly and done well, without excuses, I call on someone who is struggling with English. They'll do the job - promptly and with a smile.

American businesses are going out of business, but it isn't because of foreign labor - it's because of endemic American attitudes: poor service, pathetic customer relations, lack of attention to detail and follow-through, failure to include the customer in problem solving and decision making, and a very American attitude of entitlement and over-charging!

All of which is engaged in by lots of church people and none of which lifts the world's perception of a 'Christian America.'

But even all that is going to be covered by excuses because excuses are cheap and easy...not Christian, but the American way.