IS IT THAT BAD WORKING AT THE GROCERY STORE?
"Breathe it really isn't that bad..."
So today I made a quick pit stop at the grocery store on my way to pick up my kids from school. It was one of those moments that if you planned it correctly, you were master of your schedule. Now if you got distracted, then you were late and your great idea just became a nightmare.
I did my best to get the essentials and stay on task. I headed to the check out. The shortest line was a cashier I have seen there many times before. Sweet lady but reeeaaalllly slow. I thought to myself “I don’t have a lot of stuff so let’s do it.” I know you are thinking her snail pace made me late but no. What stands out about this mundane task was our dialogue. She was very polite and asked me “how I was doing?” I said “great how are you?” She looked at me, rolled her eyes and sighed, ” I am here…accounted for…only a half hour left.”
First off, as a business minded individual and leader – that is a HUGE no-no. That is a major pet peeve. If you hate customer service that don’t pick a job like that. The bigger issue is how unfortunate for this woman to feel so low at a place
she spends a lot of time at. According to her name tag she has been working there since 1982. WOW!
One of the mistakes we have made in the past is trying to create a line between work and personal life. Like we can somehow shut our personal side down when we cross that boundary. If you are not personally attached to what you do to earn money, than you are working from a vacant place. Action without purpose is a prison sentence. I believe there are many who indeed feel their job is a sentence without parole.
In a time of such uncertainty and change we need to remind ourselves of a few things:
- There are children working in conditions that are not fit for barn animals.
- In areas of the world, jobs involve walking for miles carrying clean water to your village.
-
There are young men and women who have chosen jobs which involve putting themselves in harms way because they believe in something. (My 3 nephews in the British Royal Marines included) - I teach individuals that have been given months to live.
Am I being dramatic? You bet. Sometimes a slap of drama can wake us up from that vacant state of mind. We are surrounded by opportunities if we choose to see them. It is just that simple. The way we choose to perceive our surroundings can be a prison or it can be a world of possibility. So are you here and accounted for or are you alive and thriving?!
You would think the automated”self check out” machines several aisles down would be threat enough for these peoples jobs to have them at least make an effort in customer relations.
The only thing the companies havent figured out is to program a personality into these machines …”yet”
The one thing I do like about the self check out though is your groceries don’t get launched from a distance into your green box!
On another note I am canvassing for the United Way and as part of our training we visited a Women’s shelter in Windsor .
It houses 11 women ,the home could hold more but anything over 11 requires additional staff.
So two young women aged in their twenties I would say,run the whole house , from admin to cooking , cleaning and every other need these unfortunate women need. They house people from the mentally ill, drug users to women who have fell foul of the economy.
They feed the eleven women on $126 a week from the government so obviously donations are a necessity. They also run a drop in food bank there.
When asked if they enjoyed their jobs they both immediately said they loved it!
These girls truly impressed me to the point where I will never complain about any job I ever
have to do.
Lets face it a lot of people dont know how good they have it.!
Good Post Jackie. x
Those are two amazing women who were mentioned in the post from Jay Cannon. I will pass the word around about the donations.
I have seen a lot of bad customer service in many different types of businesses. It does amaze me that people project their poor additudes to any one they come across. You can make a good job out of a bad job by just trying to enjoy it. As you have mentioned – there are so many people out there that have horrible jobs and it could be so much worse.
You are so right Denise. Thank you for your interest in helping them out. The funny thing about how our attitude impacts things is since people have seen how these two young women selflessly work and love what they do, everyone is looking to give them donations – myself included. This is just another example of how doing the right thing pays off. Thanks for the post.
Jackie
You know, I agree with you and love that you are so honest and up front about being dramatic! It is important that we see things correctly and that means that sometimes we allow them to be dramatic to see the importance of them. I also love that even if we choose to take a mundane job, we dont’ have to be mundane in the job. We can choose to be happy no matter what we are doing. And while it would be great if we all could do what we are best at and be in ideal jobs, since utopia hasn’t arrived yet, we can all be best at choosing joy and peace in any situation and in any position!
Very nice Blog, I will tell my friends about it.
Thanks
Hey! I just wanted to thank you for your lovely and kind comment today. It was much appreciated:) Thank you for stopping by! Una
My friend and I were recently talking about how modern society has evolved to become so integrated with technology. Reading this post makes me think back to that debate we had, and just how inseparable from electronics we have all become.
I don’t mean this in a bad way, of course! Societal concerns aside… I just hope that as memory gets less expensive, the possibility of copying our brains onto a digital medium becomes a true reality. It’s one of the things I really wish I could see in my lifetime.
(Posted on Nintendo DS running R4i Card DS scPost)
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