Tag Archives: helpful

Aug2

You Must Be New

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It was my third week working at the supermarket fuel center. It was on ok job when I didn’t have to get out of bed at 4:15 in the morning to open the place at 5:45. The job required me to do some cleaning, which wasn’t so bad, and most of the customers were neutral if not friendly. At least the grumpy ones left soon enough.

It was a busy Saturday afternoon, and if I heard the honk, it didn’t register as a call for help. I only realized I’d heard it when a customer who’d just left my window returned. He told me the lady at pump 9 was disabled and needed assistance.

I thanked him for letting me know and asked him to tell her I’d be there as soon as I could. It took at least five minutes to clear the line that formed as soon as I knew someone needed my help. When I got to pump 9, the woman in the driver’s seat looked anxious. She probably thought I’d forgotten about her or decided I didn’t want to leave the safety of my climate-controlled booth.

I told her I was there to help, and she gave me her rewards card and her credit card. She stayed in her car while I followed the directions on the pump’s screen. I could see her folded wheelchair stashed in the backseat. She kept the passenger window down so we could communicate, and her cute fluffy white dog stuck its head out to sniff me and look adorable.

The woman and I chitchatted while I filled the tank.

She asked the price of gas, and I told her it was $2.57, minus the amount of her reward. She told me she could get gas for $2.09 in the big city. I didn’t point out that most things are more expensive in small mountain towns.

She thanked me profusely for pumping her gas. I assured her it was no problem. I told her helping people was my favorite part of the job.

I would hate this job if I couldn’t help people, I said.

She rolled her eyes, and said, You must be new.

I know what the woman was getting at. Working with the public can really wear a person down. Certainly working with the public has worn me down. (For example, see the many posts I’ve written about my two summers working at a mercantile in a national forest.) I know clerks get discouraged and jaded. It’s happened to me. It could happen to me again, but I’m working really hard to stay positive. I do like helping people, and I want to continue to help people.

I don’t want to be nice and friendly and helpful only because I’m new. I want to be nice and friendly and helpful because I’m a good person and that’s the way I should treat all people, not just customers.

2 Person Holding Hands
Image courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/hands-people-friends-communication-45842/
Apr2

Kindness of Strangers

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I was driving in Las Vegas, NV on my way to the Goodwill Clearance Center in North Las Vegas. As I approached a traffic signal, I could tell there was a problem. The light was green, but the traffic was not flowing.

The car in my lane that should have rolled when the light turned green was not moving. The pickup truck second in line zipped into the left lane and zoomed away. I didn’t have time to follow the truck before other cars were blocking my entrance into the left lane. I had to stop behind the stalled car. The light turned red again, and cars stopped in the left lane.

A man got out of the car at the front of the left lane line. I’m going to help you, bro, he called out to the guy blocking the right lane.

I ran out of gas, the man in the stalled vehicle said.

I’m going to pull into the gas station across the street, the good Samaritan said. Then I’ll come back over and help you.

At first I thought the men probably knew each other. I figured a dude saw his homie in trouble and stopped to help him. However, as I stayed stuck behind the stopped car through several light changes, I wasn’t so sure. When the helpful man trotted over from the gas station, the men didn’t embrace or shake hands or chitchat or ask about each other’s mammas. Neither man indicated in any way that they were friends or even friendly. They just got to work figuring out how to move the car across the street to the gas station.

I was touched when I thought the one guy had stopped to help his friend, but I teared up when I realized the guy had stopped to help a stranger. Sometimes we think only people in small towns will help people they don’t know. It’s good to remember that people in big cities help each other too.

Sometimes strangers are kind. Sometimes we are a beautiful species.