pleasantry

[minoanmiss]

I want to disclaimer this out the wazoo, but I will trust you all know I'm (hopefully) not hellaciously conceited.

Sometimes it is really enjoyable to be pleasant and thus make people's days better, with the result that they are pleasant to me and we're all happier. Especially to service personnel who just look so happy when I'm polite and thankful to them. It's not a huge thing compared to, for example, the fact that Earth's oceans only have about a billion years left before the Sun's continued rise in output heats the Earth up until they will boil away (according to current scientific thinking) but still, it makes me happy to bring a bit of happiness to other people's days.

Brought to you by the best aspect (besides Mr. RedTed) of my dinner tonight, the really hardworking and cheerful lady who ran the register and distributed food at the little burger place where we ate. She was totally beamworthy so I beamed at her and she beamed at me back. :D

Comments

[lilysea]

Go you! ^_^

I try to be friendly and grateful to customer service staff, but they are almost always grumpy back :/

I assume it's some combination of
- I'm fat
- I'm 42
- I have visible gray hair
- I use a wheelchair

[minoanmiss]

Aw, I'm sorry! I mean, this isn't foolproof, but at least some of them should respond to you as humans to humans.

[lilysea]

Yeah, apparently the script

[Customer uses a power wheelchair] -> [therefore speak condescendingly/patronisingly to customer, as if customer is 2] is almost ubiquitous.

[ilthit]

I am so here for being nice to people in service!

[amaebi]

It's a pity that, just as kindness and treating others as humans makes the world chime pretty, cruelty breeds resonant cacophony. Thank you for building goodness.

[sabotabby]

The weirdest thing is when I'm noice to the waiter (which I just consider normal human behaviour) and they look relieved and it's clear that at least one person that day hasn't been. Like we've all worked shitty jobs and some of us are still working shitty jobs.

[cmcmck]

Who knew?

Be nice to people and they'll be nice to you!

[baranduin]

There is a new young woman at the McDonald’s drive-thru. She is very somber but she finally started smiling at me last week.

Service jobs are very hard. I feel like it is my job as a customer to be as pleasant as I can be and ALWAYS smile and say thank you. Someone refills your water? Thank you. Someone asks how is everything? Thank you. You take the bag from the drive thru window person? Thank you.

[corylea]

Yes!

One of my favorite things to do is to turn on the docents in museums. Mostly the docents get asked 1) Where the bathroom is, and 2) Stuff that's written on the signs, if only people would read the damned things.

But of course Norman and I always want to know everything, so we always read the signs, and then we Have Questions. The docent usually answers the first question or two kinda robotically, because no one ever wants to know all the great stuff they've memorized, so it's less soul-destroying for them to be in automatic mode. But by the time we ask the third question -- about stuff that's NOT written on the signs and that isn't about the location of amenities -- the docent starts to come alive. Wait, here are people who actually want to know all this cool stuff the docent knows about the subject of the museum. And they get more animated and excited as the conversation goes on and turn back into human beings.

I really DO want to know the answers to all the questions I ask, but it's also just fun to watch the docent turn back into a human being and remember why they were excited to take this job in the first place.

[princessofgeeks]

It's all about the little things!

[ellenmillion]

You are the bestest.

(And yes, service people deserve smiles, too.)

[gloss]

Smiles make such a difference. ♥

[asakiyume]

You are so, so right.

((hugs)) (happy ones)

[ceo]

See, this is why I think everyone should work at least one service job at some point in their lives, so they know what it's like and will thereafter be nice to other people in service jobs. Or so I believe with my hopelessly Polyannaesque naïveté.

[cjsmith]

My own Polyannaesque naïveté says that I can tell within a short time of meeting someone whether or not they've worked in a service job. This is ludicrous, but I also haven't been wrong yet.

[ljwrites]

The world is terrible but these little acts of kindness make it a little more bearable! <3 Also food industry work is incredibly hard and the workers are heroes.

[vettecat]

Likewise make an effort to be nice to service industry people. I've worked retail and know how hard it can be.

[hitchhiker]

:D

[swingandswirl]

You know, the Talmud says that whoever saves a single life saves the whole world. So don't discount the value of a small piece of kindness - you made someone's day better, and that's important! Especially given the hell that is working retail.