Parable of the Pothole Fillers

Omaha’s potholes needed filling like diapers need changing. Eager to find a solution to the problem, city officials first tried a company called Kitty Crater Fillers, and awarded their satisfactory service with a long term contract. After a couple of seasons, however, Kitty Crater Fillers up and left without warning, leaving Omaha in the hole.

It was a good deal of time before Omaha found another company seemingly worth trying out. Sinkhole Stuffers did an exceptional job at stuffing the sinkholes. City officials were pleased with the performance, but the mayor was hesitant to sign another long-term contract and told the company they wanted to do a little more comparison shopping before signing any official agreement. Sinkhole Stuffers, while not satisfied with the arrangement, was grateful for the patronage and saw the repeated requests for business as a sign of unspoken loyalty.

Omaha continued to utilize the services of Sinkhole Stuffers and Sinkhole Stuffers continued to benefit from the use. After a few seasons, though, the company began noticing it was being looked over by other potentially profitable customers because all of their resources were being used to help the city. This did not sit well with the executive board, especially when Omaha finally started testing out other companies and started showing increased interest in signing a contract with Any Asphalt. Not only was Sinkhole Stuffers losing business from potential customers, but it was also losing business from it’s only current customer.

Omaha city officials, rather quickly, signed a medium-range contract with Any Asphalt, leaving the owner of Sinkhole Stuffers open to pursue other passions, even though the owner would dearly miss filling potholes on the roads of Omaha. He stayed in town for a time, and took notice of the job being done by Any Asphalt. At first, the fills seemed unsatisfactory and the former owner of Sinkhole Stuffers decided to take a hiatus, just in case personal issues were clouding his view.

After the hiatus, while the roads seemed improved, they still didn’t seem up to par. Just because the former owner of Sinkhole Stuffers had found various other pursuits and was no longer interested in the business of filling Omaha’s potholes didn’t mean he didn’t care about the quality of Omaha’s roads. On the contrary; he wanted all of the potholes to be filled with quality asphalt, not just any old asphalt. He tried getting hired on at Any Asphalt to improve things from the inside, but Any Asphalt didn’t trust anyone considered former competition.

Even his closest friends didn’t believe his concern for the quality of the roads in Omaha to be sincere. Some people thought he wanted to ruin business for Any Asphalt out of spite. Others thought he was trying to get back into the business of filling Omaha’s potholes. No one believed that he just wanted ensure Omaha was receiving only premiere service from their chosen pothole-filling company. Even if it wasn’t Sinkhole Stuffers.