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Realization
I was at the grocery store for the weekly supply run, checking out. The cashier was a personable young woman, probably a college student, and she greeted me brightly. When I held up my phone to display my loyalty-card bar code, she apologized and said her handheld scanner was out of order. No worries, I said, and gave her my phone number instead.
She began unloading my cart, passing the items one by one over the stationary scanner. Meanwhile I stuck my debit card in the PIN pad and punched buttons, not really paying attention to what she was doing. Then I looked up and saw that this young lady was wrestling the 35-pack of bottled water out from under my cart and maneuvering it across the scanner. I had completely forgotten that it was there, and it hadn’t occurred to me that with her handheld scanner broken, she’d have to do this. By the time I noticed, however, it was too late for me to help.
I laughed awkwardly and said “I guess sometimes a broken scanner is really inconvenient.” Apparently I must have decided that my attempt at humor wasn’t sufficiently lame, because I added “Lift with your legs, not your back!” I meant it as a humorous acknowledgement of how hard her job was, but I knew as soon as I said it that it didn’t work. Here I was, standing there watching her do all the work, making no move to help, and joking about it. I just hoped it didn’t come across that way.
She finished ringing me up, and I thanked her as I began to wheel the loaded cart away. She looked me straight in the eye, a smile frozen on her face, and said “Have an absolutely wonderful day!”
OK. Maybe she really meant it. Maybe she’s just one of those sunny people who talks like that. But I have a suspicion that she was actually making an effort to be the courteous employee, putting on an over-the-top performance while on the inside she was thinking “What a jerk.”
As I walked out to the car I felt embarrassed for having given her the wrong impression. I know myself: I know that I am a kind, caring, sensitive guy. I’m one of the good ones. How sad that I had accidentally left this cashier with the wrong impression about me.
But then a disturbing thought occurred to me: maybe … she’s right. Maybe I am a jerk.
People judge us by our actions and words, not by the thoughts we keep to ourselves. It doesn’t matter what we’re thinking when we’re rude. That’s why social niceties require attention and work, because they don’t happen automatically just because you mean well.
Unfortunately, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve become busier and more distracted. I tend to be absorbed in my own thoughts a lot of the time, and I always feel like I’m in a hurry. Added to that is my natural shyness, which has always made me awkward in social situations. So I’m more likely to distract myself with my smartphone than to engage in casual smalltalk; I keep my head down when I’m walking; I breeze past people rather than say hello. And if I find myself forced to interact with someone I don’t know well, I fall back on lame humor, because I don’t know how to do anything else.
It doesn’t matter if I’m a kind person on the inside. On the outside, I’m afraid I am sometimes a jerk. Not because I intend to be; not because I bear ill will toward anyone; but because it’s hard work to be nice to people, and I haven’t made it a habit to try hard enough. This is a sobering realization, and I think it’s something I have to do better at.
But I suspect the next time I go to that grocery store, if I see that cashier working again, I’ll probably just go to a different register. Maybe to the self-checkout line, where I won’t have to interact with anyone at all. It’s easier that way.
Published in General
This store doesn’t have a conveyor belt. The way it’s set up, you wheel the cart right up to the register, and the clerk then take items directly out of the cart and scans them one by one. Then they go onto a sort of turntable, from which the bagger bags them.
I sometimes bag my own groceries if it’s just a few items and there’s no bagger on duty, but if it’s a lot of stuff I let the professionals handle it. Proper grocery bagging is a skill, and I’ve learned that if I do it, I end up with flattened bread or stuff falling out on the way home. As for the number of bags, I bring reusable canvas bags with me, and generally everything fits in those.
Well said, Barry. A good lesson on how a truly nice person always handles comments like that.
You’re onto something here. Soldiers, athletes, and musicians practice drills over and over until proper responses become instincts. Their deliberate choices are trained until those actions require no deliberation. Likewise, our inter-personal habits can become automatic.
Unfortunately, greetings and such cannot be practiced so easily. The circumstances are not repeated so regularly, nor so exactly.
We mentally prepare ourselves for more important interactions: a job interview, a date, etc. Perhaps it’s good to occasionally prepare for lesser interactions, like greeting a grocery clerk.
Terrific article! I can relate.
To avoid the cashier would be to yield to Vanity’s attempt to turn a small error into a sin.
She won’t remember that you didn’t offer to help. Depending on how bad the day goes, she may well remember the smart aleck comment.
I’ve spent a fair chunk of time on the other side of the register. The biggest frustration is when we’re treated like robots to be ignored or abused or just straight men for nitwits who think themselves wits. You say “No price tag? Must mean it’s free!” I think “all I need is one sales clerk on the jury for a hanged verdict in the murder trial.”
And yeah, I second the suggestion to just practice smiling, making small talk, and other social niceties. Drilling makes things instinctual, like wishing people a wonderful day even when you think they’re jerks.
This may be true, but what worries me is not so much the fact that I might have annoyed this one cashier. It’s the possibility that I might be doing the same thing all day, every day, without realizing it.
These days, being impolite is much less of a crime than being patronizing.
Evening Bartolommeo,
It seems as if the event has caused you to ask yourself if your response has a deeper meaning, am I, for various reasons, looking away from the people that I interact with in daily affairs. That is a good question, Victor Frankl might suggest that at all times we have a responsibility. He notes that there are those folks who are going through the same difficulties that we are but they are making life worse, and and that there are those folks who are going through the same difficulties we are but they make the difficulties of life lighter. He suggests that we should work to be in the group that makes the difficulties of life easier, even as we have our own difficulties. Do you think Victor has an insight into even daily life?
That’s an interesting way of looking at it. I’d certainly rather be part of the second group than the first. But yeah, I think it definitely applies more broadly than just people who are dealing with difficulties.
What I think it all comes down to for me is that I am an introvert, which means that most of the time I am content to be left alone; it’s not that I don’t like people, it’s just that I enjoy time to myself, and I tend to guard it jealously. But the thing is: if I’m going to be out in the world, running errands and going to work and whatever else, I am going to be around other people, and I shouldn’t fall into the trap of pretending that I’m not. Even if I think I’m keeping to myself, I’m actually affecting other people, even if I don’t intend to. That effect can either be positive or negative, and unfortunately I think negative is easier.
Noted philosopher George Costanza said it best: “You know, we’re living in a society!”
Sometimes, when you’re trying to lighten the incident, it backfires…The first day of school (it was Monday for me) I realized that I had never connected with the custodians to get me more student chairs. I’d tried to to more chairs earlier, before the students arrived, but I couldn’t find the custodian. So I started the day short six chairs. I figured I could eventually get some. I just knew I wasn’t the most important problem that day.
See, when I got to school, about hour before the students were due, I found out that the ferocious wind storm that had slammed our neighborhood over the weekend had torn the roof of our P.E. teacher’s portable classroom/office, slamming said roof onto the playground. Also, we’d lost the shade-tarp over one of our slides/playground equipment. So, as you can imagine, the custodians and the principal were busy trying to solve that problem.
As the students came into the classroom, the principal happened past my room, as I was trying to get a chair from my neighbor. He asked what was wrong; I told him I needed six more chairs; he opened a closet and got them for me. Trying to explain how I could be so unprepared, I said, “I couldn’t find the custodian this morning to ask her. But I figured that a few chairs wasn’t very important compared to a lost roof.”
I was trying to make light of the situation, and acknowledge that I knew there were bigger problems than mine. Ooops…
He called me into his office when my students went to Art class, and basically chewed me out for saying that in front of my class. According to him, I was saying that students don’t matter. That their needs weren’t that big of deal. Well, the students are the MAIN THING. (Like I didn’t know…) Etc. Etc.
So, I sheepishly apologized, tried to explain that I was just trying to say that I knew that the custodians were super busy, and I was so, so sorry I’d upset him. Sheeesh…wow. I’ll just shut up and say “Thanks” from now on if I need anything every again from him.
Evening Bartholomew,
Victor’s comments were made to fellow prisoners in a German prison camp. I am not the most cheerful person, however I think Victor lays this on going responsibility on me in such a way that I feel that if he can think like this in a prison camp, I can try to hold up my end when I am living in comparative paradise. Often, I think I am acting happier than I am, and I think that in a way it is my job to be positive, especially in certain situations.
You mean the ones that end up infested with salmonella? Cool.
Only if you never wash them, and if you don’t have the meat bagged in plastic first.
She will if he apologizes next time through.
Yes.
And if she would fit in a small sub?
Oh, I’m going to lay some Dennis Prager on you… You’re an introvert? So what? Get over it. Don’t be boring. Make eye contact. Be sincerely(!) interested in other people. There is always, always something to talk about in the checkout. “Have you ever tried these dark chocolate covered almonds with sea salt and turbinado sugar?? They’re incredible!”
I hear what Spin is saying about not being gifted with the heart of a servant (I have a good friend who so obviously is! And I’m not.), but I think we’re trainable. We just have to get over ourselves. It’s a lifelong project and it gets easier the older you get.
I find that transactional encounters — things like small talk and interacting with cashiers — are far more difficult, and far more anxiety-inducing, than all other forms of social interaction. It’s odd. I like conversation. I like answering questions. I like giving directions. But I tend to panic when I order a Subway sandwich. The simpler the task, the worse.
Arguably, sincerity might be the best way to derail formalized prattle.
How many people who ask, “How are you?” actually want an answer? Almost none. How many cashiers really care about their customers’ days? Almost none. What happens when someone answers any of these questions honestly? Confusion, consternation, and accusations of jerkiness.
Just mention Trump to the cashier next time. That’s always a lively conversation starter.
Oh, who cares? Stop caring whether they’re sincerely interested in your day and become sincerely interested in them! Everyone has a story (and wants to tell it). Often it starts with reading the name tag — there are some really interesting names out there these days. “How do you say your name? Were you named after someone?” Doesn’t work so well for “Bob,” but you get the picture.
I recently talked to a Walmart clerk with the name tag “Reganne.” It’s pronounced Reagan, like the president, and, yes, her mother named her after RR. Seriously. You learn some great stuff and get some smiles and laughs going. Don’t be boring.
Did you know that there were originally three shortened versions of Robert or Robin? Bob, Rob, and Hob. It’s the same with Richard. Rick, Dick, and Hick. And yes, that is where we get our word hick, as some rural person, because hundreds of years ago, Richard was a much more common name.
The name doesn’t matter. There is always something one can talk about.
And then you’d look like you were staring at her chest, it’s all beginning to look like a Seinfeld skit.
I hope you’re right about that.
I’m sure I am.
Of course, I’ve never worried about that.
Reminds me of the doctor who was studying sociopaths and found a commonality in their brain scans. Then he saw his own brain scan, and said, “Oh, this one’s a definite sociopath” before he saw the name of the “patient.” He mentioned it to colleagues, and every one of them had a reaction of, “You didn’t know before this?”
DAT’S what I’m TALKIN about!
The lifting capacity of a given submarine probably has more to do with the mode of power and the available ballast than the size as such.
<span class="atwho-inserted" contenteditable="false" data-atwho-at-query="@exjon“>@exjon
You’ll trip on the sidewalk.
Show you care; ask her what her preferred pronoun is.