Squeaky Wheel Squared: Summer Week #18 – 10/8/25

Squeaky Wheel #1: 

Today is a big day. Our eldest daughter passed her driver’s test! I’m so very happy for her and proud of her. I am also a big old soup of feelings about it. 

I am thrilled I will not have to get up at 6 am on Saturdays to drive her to the high school to catch the cross country team bus to her meets – that I then drive to later, drive home from later, and then pick her up from at the high school later. 

I am thrilled I will not have to get up at 6:30 am on Sundays to drive her to her job at the coffee shop, and then have the day cut in half by having to pick her back up at 2:30 pm. 

I’m sad that I will no longer have those built in drive times, ten minutes a shot, to hear about my daughter’s life. She’s a sophomore in high school, and rarely home. These drives are precious in staying connected with her life. I’m nervous for this big change. 

I am thrilled that I will no longer have to drive my kids to the bus stop by 7:10 am! 

I’m terrified to let go and trust that my daughter will be safe. With her sisters in the car, that’s like my whole world. Scary to trust they will be okay. To not feel anxious about what could happen to them out there. 

But, as we do as parents, I will let go and learn to be okay with this new phase. I know I will get used to seeing her beige 1996 Toyota Camry pull in and out of the driveway. The fact that she’ll be driving her great-grandmother’s car (only 57,000 miles on it, baby!), will be a reminder that life just keeps trucking forward.

There’s a little squeak that the wheel makes on her Toyota (we’ve had it aligned and checked multiple times), that’s just part of how the car sounds. I know I will become very very familiar with that sound…. excited and terrified all at once for my daughter’s independence. Relieved she is home safely. Excited to hear about her adventures. That squeaky wheel is soon going to mean the world to me. 

Squeaky Wheel #2:

Sometimes there are folks I just can’t please. No matter how hard I try. 

This is a part of my job I’m not very good at – trying my best and having someone still be quite upset about it. Just writing about it makes my heart beat quicken (I could never be a politician, I’d be so horrible at knowing how mad people would be at me).

We had a member new to our farm this season, and from the beginning of his time with us he was full of complaints. It started with items missing from his share. We did what we always do when this happens – we explained that we sometimes make mistakes (we average a 1% error rate per pack.. about 5 mistakes per 500 boxes packed), and we credited him for the vegetables. 

When this happened to him a 2nd time, we flagged his account. This alerts our packline that this person has had a mistake. The rule on the pack line is that the person packing a flagged account cannot talk while they pack that box so that they concentrate fully and don’t make an error. 

This member complained again, and began texting my phone with unfriendly complaints. 

I responded by making sure everyone on the packline knew his name and made double triple sure his box was perfect.

This did not seem to help. We all began to wonder if he was being dishonest about the mistakes in his box because there were so many, despite many lines of double checking. 

Eventually I offered him the opportunity to end his membership early and refund him for the remainder of the season.

He happily took the refund. Then proceeded to 1 star us on google and continue his complaints against us. He did not mention the refund. 

I have lost much sleep over this man. 

Of course, we can never please everyone. And well, part of my work as a human is to accept that. We all see things in our own ways, through our own lenses, with our own expectations that can be quite different from each other. This is something to accept and be calm about, and I am trying to. 

But dang, the fact that the squeaky wheel can be so loud bothers me! Not many people leave reviews for us on google, so when a squeaky wheel does, it can feel devastating. 

If you like being a member of our farm and feel so moved to take a few minutes to drown out the squeaky wheel on google, we’d so appreciate it! 

Sincerely, 
Farmer Cassie