A lady came to my till at the grocery store the other day with her children and a ton of groceries. This isn't unusual. What was unusual were the two aluminum pans she sent down the belt. I'd never had a customer buy them before but I realized very quickly that they were for the bottom of your oven and that they are extremely flimsy.
I scanned these pans and then placed them on top of some other items and then decided that they should go underneath something so that they wouldn't get bent or shoved around. As I was doing this, the lady got very upset with me and yelled at me to stop it because I was going to wreck them. She shoved my hands away and I very quietly continued to scan the rest of her items.
As I was waiting for her to pay, she touched my hand and smiled and sort of laughed and said she was sorry, but that last time the cashier bent them and they got cracked and she couldn't use them anymore. This wasn't my first angry customer of the day, so was on the verge of tears and didn't look at her or say anything. I just sort of nodded my head.
Later on when it had slowed down and I didn't have any customers in line, I told one of my fellow cashiers about what had happened. I wondered aloud if some people even realize how awful they can be? Do they realize that they are the thing that wrecked someone else's day?
And then it was my turn.
Yesterday I had a customer come in who wanted to split her groceries into two separate bills. That was fine with me; customers did it all the time. So I ran her first batch through and she decided to try and use her new bank card because I told her she would get points for using it, but she couldn't remember her pin. At that point she resorted to using her Visa, which I told her we don't accept. She looked at me and said, "You do if that's the only thing I have." This is true. If a customer comes in and has no cash, no MasterCard, no debit, then yes, I can accept the Visa. I said "okay" to the woman and let her swipe her card, but as she did so, I wanted to say, "If you knew that we'd take it if you didn't have anything else, then you've been here several times before, and you came in knowing we don't take Visa." She knew better.
We finished that transaction and then I ran through her second batch. This time she paid with cash. She wanted the points again, but I told her she only gets them if she pays with her bank card. She started to fuss a little about it but I'd already moved on to the next customer and she'd moved to the end of the belt. So she let it be. But only for a moment. Forlorn, she held out her hand and said, "Oh no, I forgot to give you all my coupons." I told her it was too late because we'd already finished the transaction. She looked at me and said, "You can still do it for me. Or I'll just return all this stuff." Aggravated, I told her to go down to the last till and that the cashier there could help her.
I was getting annoyed and in my mind she was being rude, and the cashier at the last till was my supervisor, who knows very well how to handle rude customers. So away she went.
And then she was back. Apparently the five dollar bill I gave her in change wasn't up to par. It had been ripped in half and taped back together and she wanted a new one because, "with my luck it'll rip in half in my purse." So I gave her a new one and she went away.
About 15 minutes later, I had a man come through my till who asked me how my night was going. I told him I'd had some interesting customers. He laughed and asked me for an example. So I gave him one. I told him all about the lady who wanted points and then wanted to use her Visa, which she very well knew we didn't take, and then she wanted me to redo her order so that she could use her coupons, and then she wanted a new five. He laughed and shook his head and went on his way. Then, not two minutes later, guess who showed up at my till?
The lady. I was a little nervous seeing as I didn't know why she was still in the store and wondered if she'd overheard everything I'd just said about her. She gave me a package of chicken to ring through for her and said, a little sadness in her voice, and without an ounce of bitterness, "And I know you don't want to take my card, so I'll just have to see if I have enough to pay you in change."
It was at that moment, as she was scrounging around in her change purse looking for enough quarters and nickels to make up seven dollars, that I realized I'd become the person that had wrecked someone else's day. It was me. I was the thoughtless unkind villain who had unknowingly slammed the door on any sunshine that had been streaming in on them. As I held out my hand to the change she slowly counted out to me, something pulled in me and I fought to find the words to apologize, to tell her that what I had done was awful, that I shouldn't have talked about her to a stranger the way I did. But no words came, and I stood there as though I didn't even recognize her.
She gave me exact change and said thank you when I gave her the receipt and then she left.
The thought of what I had done has plagued me ever since that moment and I keep praying that I will meet her again and be able to make amends for what I'd said and how I'd treated her. But until then, I will do my best never to assume that these strangers mean to hurt me, but that they simply need someone to be patient and kind and understanding.
