A friend once told me, “Kenny, your family is proof that the Cold War is really over.” There are seven native-born Americans, five from Kazakhstan who spent their first few years speaking Russian, two granddaughters with dual citizenship. Finally, my wife and stepson are both citizens of the People’s Republic of China. And that is how we came to be making plans to celebrate Lunar New Year this year, at our favorite Chinese restaurant, with twelve people speaking three different languages. 

Obviously, if one wishes to go to a Chinese restaurant to kick off the Spring Festival without waiting an hour for food, one gets a reservation. With fluent Mandarin speakers in the household, we don’t have to worry about any unfortunate misunderstandings over the phone. My wife called up our favorite restaurant and made the reservation, plenty far enough in advance. 

Ah, but the best-laid plans, famously, gang aft agley, and two positive COVID tests later we were down to five people: my wife and stepson and myself, and two of my daughters. So we called the Chinese restaurant back, the day before our now-not-nearly-so-big dinner party, and the restaurant adjusted the reservation. 

On the day itself, we were on our way to the restaurant, when we got a text from one of the daughters. “We’re here, sitting at the table,” she said, “But the waitress says the wait time for ordering food is like fifty minutes because they’re busy with online orders.” 

“The girls must not have told them we had a reservation,” I reassured my wife.

Helen and I decided to talk to the person at the cash register, but we had to wait because the person at the cash register was busy getting yelled at by another customer, in Mandarin too rapid and outraged for me to follow. I was not surprised, though, when Helen told me, “He’s furious because he has had to wait so long for his food.” 

By the time it was our turn to complain, we already concluded that (a) complaining would do us no good, and (b) the lady at the cash register had already been adequately complained at. So, we just told them politely that we would go find somewhere else to eat. But of course, the whole reason we had gotten a reservation in the first place was that any Chinese restaurant was going to have at least an hour’s wait unless you had a reservation, as we no longer did. Which is how our family celebrated Chinese New Year at Olive Garden. 

This got me thinking about two reasons Veritas and my colleagues are so great. First, this experience reminded me was that achieving a goal often means overcoming obstacles regardless of how well you plan. In this case, it was a huge obstacle. Luckily, we all decided to focus on the best way to still have a nice meal (before everybody got too hungry) and quickly pivoted to a solution for that. A lot of consulting firms, solution providers, and system implementors I’ve been around let obstacles become huge problems. Working with my colleagues at Veritas is great because we all maintain positive can-do attitudes and don’t let unknown obstacles get in our way. 

This leads me to the second, bigger reminder. Veritas understands projects and our work is about getting organizations to their end goal. We don’t just follow prescribed steps or, even worse, say “Sorry, that’s what the SOW says”. The restaurant took the reservation and technically had a table reserved for us. However, the point of the reservation wasn’t to have a place to sit for an hour before ordering. The goal was to be able to have a meal around a certain time. They fell way short of that goal. When Veritas works with clients, we keep their goals in mind. And we make sure they get there. 

In summary, you need to be aware of your goal and know how to pivot and overcome obstacles to achieve goals. The restaurant failed at both but my family was quick to find a solution in order to achieve our goal. We enjoyed a wonderful Lunar New Year dinner – with food, on time, surrounded by family. Happy Lunar New Year, everyone!

At Veritas, we are a diverse firms and pride ourselves on recognizing and celebrating different cultural traditions like Lunar New Year. Check out our Culture Code to better understand our core values that guide and make Veritas the great firm it is. If you are interested in learning more about our culture or services, contact us to learn more or subscribe to our blog to stay connected!