making a difference

What goes around DOES come around. Neither paying things forward nor plain old-fashioned good manners EVER cost much, but their absence does affect our personal encounters, on whatever level.

I am reminded of this each time I am given the all-to-phoney, or at best absent-minded, “Hello” from the clerk at 7-Eleven, Circle-K, or Hastings. I am now convinced that these greetings are driven more by corporate policy or procedures, intended to get me, the customer, to look directly into the in-store video surveylance system. I’m convinced here that I’m being no more cynical than the feet and inches etched into the edge of the entrance door to measure my height and that of each incoming customer. Just look next time if you don’t believe me.

More than once, I’ve looked to see who had greeted me so nicely only to realize, to my own embarassment, that it was never me that anyone was actually greeting. In the moment it might take me to look around, and reply, the clerk has long since moved on to whatever business might be at hand. It was, in fact, the opening of the front door, which prompted a reflexive behavior on the part of an attendant. This is apparently the state of interaction to which things have deteriorated between folks on opposite sides of what used to be a polite and therefore genuinely pleasant social interaction.

This is all rather like the pilingon of loose change, on top of cash, on top of a receipt, so that all may be handed over at once, rather than waiting the extra moment it might take for a customer to place one in the pocket and the others in the wallet or purse. It also gets us to take the receipt, rtecagrdless of haw small the transaction, so that the clerk can claim to have followed procedure by providing it whether we want it or not. Better to get it over with, move us along, and move to the next “point of sale.”

“Hi,” “How are you,” “Did you find everything alright today,” and “Thanks for coming,” have been hijacked and corporatized to the point that they are almost better off ignored, unless of course they are said with at least some genuine feeling, which seems sadly to have been all but lost.

Dawn’s point isn’t naive – she points out something that is sadly lacking, and sorely missed by some of us, from most people’s day-to-day interactions. I’m glad to see it mentioned here.

Thank you all, and have a nice day. . . really.