Reminiscing with clients.
I got a call the other day from a long-time client, Samantha. Her tech writing business had gradually dwindled down to nothing over the years, and she got a full time job a few years back, so her own business had minimal activity, but she dutifully paid me to keep doing the bookkeeping for it.
She called because she'd just been laid off from her full time job, and she had questions on unemployment (the home office was in a different state) and some other things that I really wasn't much help with, since I've had zilch personal experience with such things. Ultimately, it was apparent that she just wanted to talk. She wanted to close down her business, because the expense of keeping it going was greater than anything she was getting out of it, but felt she couldn't for this and that reason, and we talked that through.
At one point, she asked, "Do you still do work for Gary?" Gary was a client I'd had since 2003. He was a pastor that did weddings and, back then, also did corporate seminars on adapting to change. In recent years, most of his time was spent traveling the world as a missionary of sorts. He was a mutual client for me and Samantha and that's how she and I became acquainted. I was delighted to tell her that, yes, I was still doing his bookkeeping. She loved hearing that, and we chuckled that he still sends his documents to me via snail mail, as he's probably 80ish. We calculated that we had met in 2006 via Gary. Wow, 14 years I've been doing the bookkeeping for her small business, and even longer for Gary.
Then yesterday, I had a phone message left by Robert, who was a builder. Did I remember him? I'd done some bookkeeping for him in years past when he had his own firm, and that ended when he went to work for another company. I indeed remembered him, and when I looked him up in my records, I found that I'd done work for him in 2009 and 2010. Tens year ago and he still remembered me. I called him back and we had a great conversation. He is still happily employed, but he's ready to do some side work and had started his own business again, and was readily agreeable to my fee.
It's so great to have ties that extend so far back, and memories that are so positive.
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