For my job as an assistant, I often find myself running around to different businesses buying things, returning items, sending out packages, etc. Through this, I encounter a lot of different employees, mainly at the register. As a former retail associate, I have been in their shoes before, so I know the ins and outs of jobs like theirs. I know that a lot of the time they have to deal with customers that aren’t pleasant to work with and on top of that I don’t think they are paid very well either. This is why when I walk up to the register, I always try my best to greet them with a smile and treat them with respect. Even when I am faced with them needing to enforce something that isn’t exactly in my favor. In those cases, I always tell them “I understand”, of course unless it is completely out of reason. What I have found when acting this way toward employees, I often find that they open up to me, go out of their way for me, or even give me a discount when they probably aren’t supposed to. I am not saying you should be kind to get things out of it, but I have found that every exchange at these places has gone more smoothly, and altercations were figured out quicker when you are simply nice to people.
There is one example in particular that comes to mind. I was at a used gaming store, and I needed to pay with my boss’s credit card. The problem is, at stores like these, the name on your card must match your ID. When I explained the situation to the employee, he told me that I couldn’t use the card even though he trusted me. Instead of getting upset, I simply told him that I understood, and I would use my own card. I couldn’t blame him in this situation because it isn’t even his rule, it’s the company’s rule; but since he works there, he has to enforce it. He seemed kind of surprised by my response and apologized to me. He said that he had to deal with some customers that haven’t been very nice lately and he appreciated my understanding nature toward him. He then gave me a discount so that I wouldn’t have to put as much on my own card.
In situations like those, it makes you feel good that you were able to make someone’s day easier because you never know what people are going through on a day-to-day basis. So let this be a word to the wise: always extend kindness, patience, and understanding to the people around you and they will extend the same back to you.
