The domino effect of broken promises

I was meeting up with some friends for breakfast the other day. We’d agreed to meet at 8.30am in the restaurant in the Hotel Cosmos we were all staying at in Moscow. It started as ‘Let’s meet at 8.00’ and turned into 8.30, which is late for me for breakfast, but I thought the later the better for them – at least I’d know they would be there on time.

8.30am sharp, I was in the restaurant with my husband, Peter. We sat at a table for 4 people, spreading our bags and coats over the chairs to reserve them. This was a busy restaurant and people would just lob up and sit at your table if it looked like it was available.

By 8.40am Peter decided to go an get his breakfast (it was buffet – self service). I decided to wait.

Two ladies came by and asked if the seats next to us were taken. ‘Sorry, we’re minding them for friends who are joining us soon.’ I said with a smile. The ladies wandered around the restaurant and eventually found somewhere else to sit.

By 8.50am I decided to get myself a cup of tea and something light, but I’d wait till our friends joined us before I would serve up a hot breakfast.

At 8.52am, while watching the door and looking at my watch, wondering where our friends were, a young girl came over and attempted to sit at out table. ‘I’m sorry, that seat’s taken’, I said and waved my hand in her direction. She picked up her things and moved on. Now I was feeling guilty.

The young girl wandered back over. ‘Truly, they are meeting us here. They are just running late.’ I said, shrugging my shoulders. She wandered off again, finding a seat just behind us.

‘How can they be this late?’ Peter and I were wondering. They were staying in the same hotel, so we knew they weren’t caught in traffic or anything like that.

At 9.00am I got myself some more breakfast. The two ladies who I first rejected kept looking over at our table and whispering something to each other. I could only assume they were saying dreadful things about us and how we wouldn’t let anyone sit near us.

At 9.15am we had finished our breakfast. No sign of our friends. As we had only just met them a few days before, we didn’t have their mobile numbers, and didn’t know what room they were in, or we would have tracked them down.

Then it happened. One of the two ladies came over to our table, stared at me and said ‘Hmm. minding seats for your friends, hey? I don’t trust you!’

I gasped. ‘But I’m the trust lady!’, I thought. That hurts! Two weeks later and I can still see her face and hear her words ringing in my ears. ‘But it wasn’t my fault!!’ I wanted to tell her. If I knew who she was, I’d find her just to tell her.

But it got me thinking (as many of life’s events do). There’s a domino effect to broken promises. We were taking action as a direct result of a promise made to us. When that promise was broken, it had a flow on effect to others that we were encountering and dealing with.

How often does this happen in business? In families? In communities?

How often does it happen in yours?