On the radio this morning on my way into work, I heard a clip of the actor Walter Koenig announcing the suicide of his son, Andrew.  My generation remembers Andrew as 'Boner' Stabone from the hit sitcom Growing Pains; the generation prior will remember his father Walter as Ensign Chekov from the original Star Trek.

I will aim to tread carefully here, as there is little we do at Catchlight that concerns itself with life and death.  Safety is, of course, the notable exception; nonetheless, ours is almost wholly a supplemental function--at root and at best, we ornament our customers' lives.

From my vantage, Mr. Koenig's grief is palpable on a deep, nearly wordless level.  I have a young child, as do many of our painters, and I suspect their reactions to Koenig's announcement would be pretty similar to mine.  The temptation is to begin with "I can't imagine how horrible it must..."; the reality is that I can imagine, and I absolutely don't want to.  As a dad, an elemental level of Mr. Koenig's grief is immediately available to me in a way it wasn't a few years ago, and I'd argue that's a matter of perspective more than it is a sign of deepened character.

Here is where I tread extra carefully: through a far, far, far more narrow lens, I think our women and men are able to exceed your expectations on a regular basis because they are able to put themselves in your shoes and deliver the caliber of service they'd want for themselves.  Our painters are artists and experts at home improvement, and a good portion are regularly engaged in projects at their own homes, and so your perspective is immediately available to them--they'd no sooner leave a mess in their own hallway than they would in yours.  And here, I think, this shared perspective affords us the ability to promise you house painters who place your wishes and needs at their mountaintop every day.