Niceness
Though I have personally experienced how incredibly kind and helpful people can be, I'm still often struck by the lack of empathy shown in everyday life. Take today.
We had done our weekly shopping and were in line to pay at the supermarket. Then we noticed that there was a hold-up. THEN we noticed that there was a hold-up at most of the tills around us. Turns out their debit/credit card payment system was down. We witnessed the manager realizing this as he went around to the various cashiers. Finally, he started telling the cashiers and customers that everyone would have to pay cash for the time being. Personally, while this was vaguely annoying and inconvenient, I wasn't too upset and Kate just popped out to the ATM outside to get some money. However, the woman in front of us responded to the manager with a very rude sounding, "You're joking!". Lots of people looked pretty irritated.
Yes, it wasn't the best situation, but it wasn't the fault of the staff and the fact is, computer systems go down sometimes. It doesn't help to be rude to the people who are doing their best to keep things operating.
It just goes in with the many people who push on at the bus I sometimes catch in Heston, the many people who drop litter about because they can't walk ten feet to a bin, the customers who take it as a personal insult if someone can't immediately provide exactly what they want. I saw a guy who got really quite angry about not being able to access a service at the post office I was in. He had read on the internet that he could, but it turned out that the online information was incorrect. I understood his annoyance and his desire to highlight the issue, but when the guy at the desk offered him a complaint form and address, he said, "Okay, I'll do your job for you." This was a glitch made by whoever does the NATIONAL website, not this one guy at the desk in a tiny local post office. He calmly pointed this out, but the guy was convinced that he had been utterly cheated by the service of this particular person. I wanted to tell him to chill out, but that probably wouldn't have helped.
So, yeah. I wish people could realize that if we all were a bit more mindful of what other people are going through, had some perspective about things going wrong and some more empathy with the world in general, life would probably be a lot more pleasant.
Saying all this, I'm sure I'm guilty of overreacting at a few points in my life. All I can say is that I'm sorry to those people I've been short with and that I'm trying to be better.
We had done our weekly shopping and were in line to pay at the supermarket. Then we noticed that there was a hold-up. THEN we noticed that there was a hold-up at most of the tills around us. Turns out their debit/credit card payment system was down. We witnessed the manager realizing this as he went around to the various cashiers. Finally, he started telling the cashiers and customers that everyone would have to pay cash for the time being. Personally, while this was vaguely annoying and inconvenient, I wasn't too upset and Kate just popped out to the ATM outside to get some money. However, the woman in front of us responded to the manager with a very rude sounding, "You're joking!". Lots of people looked pretty irritated.
Yes, it wasn't the best situation, but it wasn't the fault of the staff and the fact is, computer systems go down sometimes. It doesn't help to be rude to the people who are doing their best to keep things operating.
It just goes in with the many people who push on at the bus I sometimes catch in Heston, the many people who drop litter about because they can't walk ten feet to a bin, the customers who take it as a personal insult if someone can't immediately provide exactly what they want. I saw a guy who got really quite angry about not being able to access a service at the post office I was in. He had read on the internet that he could, but it turned out that the online information was incorrect. I understood his annoyance and his desire to highlight the issue, but when the guy at the desk offered him a complaint form and address, he said, "Okay, I'll do your job for you." This was a glitch made by whoever does the NATIONAL website, not this one guy at the desk in a tiny local post office. He calmly pointed this out, but the guy was convinced that he had been utterly cheated by the service of this particular person. I wanted to tell him to chill out, but that probably wouldn't have helped.
So, yeah. I wish people could realize that if we all were a bit more mindful of what other people are going through, had some perspective about things going wrong and some more empathy with the world in general, life would probably be a lot more pleasant.
Saying all this, I'm sure I'm guilty of overreacting at a few points in my life. All I can say is that I'm sorry to those people I've been short with and that I'm trying to be better.