Monday, March 23, 2009

Small Words Big Impact

I want to share a short story about words. We used to own a convenience store and I used to train most of the cashiers and well, everyone but this is about a cashier. A cashier is usually the first one to see a customer enter the store and we wanted all customers greeted as they entered. There are those "daily' customers you know that come in for the paper and coffee at the same time every day and you get to know their names and so on. Well So, this new gal is on like day 5 in training and I happen to be up front when in walks a woman with her hair in a mess, she is wearing her (looks like) pajamas and she's almost leaning over to walk. My cashier says to her,as she enters," Hi . Wow you look terrible today, must of had a rough night." As soon as the lady was out of ear shot I told the cashier, Did you know that maybe That woman has been sick and undergoing chemo. That maybe I haven't seen her out in ages. That maybe This is the first time she has bee feeling good enough to go anywhere and maybe she looks better than she has in a year. You just told her she looks terrible. Wow, the the face of my cashier changed in a second, she felt awful about what she said. Of course, what decent person wouldn't? The words were not harsh, The words were not out of the ordinary of what you may say to someone you know personally, but those small words could be very hurtful to another person that you don't know of their circumstances. Well, point made, I fessed up to the fact that I had said maybe that woman has been sick and maybe she hadn't been up to getting out Because truely I did not know, but those are possibilities, and to avoid feeling like crap for having a loose tongue think before you speak.Innocent comments can be damaging. Just a thought

1 comment:

  1. Hey Dawn!!

    How are you? Thought to check on your blog ;)
    *hugs*

    ReplyDelete