nice guys

When you work in retail you meet all sorts of people.

Most are indifferent when it comes to interacting with the people who work in a store; they are courteous enough, but they think nothing of texting or checking their email or, worse yet, making a phone call while standing right in front of you.

Others, are downright hostile.  They will curse at you and blame you, even for something that was clearly their fault.  And they will let you know exactly what they think of your store and its policies.  One woman refused to look at me after the printer "ate" her receipt and I had to begin her purchase all over again.  No matter how many times I apologized, she kept her gaze focused elsewhere and never once acknowledged my apologies.  Not once.

Every now and again, though, you come across someone who smiles and says "hello;" someone who treats you as though you may know a thing or two about the products you work with each and everyday; someone who is genuinely nice.  Like the eighty-one year old grandmother who returned a pair of pants because every time she bent over her underwear showed.  "I haven't shown that part of my anatomy in years," she said.  "And I'm not going to start now!"

Sometimes, at the end of a long and tiring day, I wish I could hunt those nice people down and say "thank you," or "you were the bright spot in my day."  Or better yet, I wish I could turn back the hands of time and tell them, in the moment, how much I appreciated having them in the store.  Since neither of those is possible there is only one thing I can do:  I can pay it forward.  I can be the bright spot in someone else's day; the one to bring humor into an otherwise dull and humorless workplace.  I can smile and look the store clerk in the eye when she talks to me and say "hello" to the bag boy when he hands me my groceries.

I can be a nice guy too.