Supermarket saviour’s kindness shines through
Last week I transformed Stoke New World’s express checkout lane into a slow lane to nowhere. I wanted to use my credit card to purchase some tissues, toothpaste and a pack of paracetamol and get $50 cash. The patient checkout operator explained that I couldn’t get cash on a credit card. I dithered. The queue grew longer.
I felt a tap on my arm. ‘‘I’ll pay for those,’’ said a kind chap in orange and blue overalls. ‘‘No problem at all.’’ Startled, I blushed and, with thanks, demurred.
I gathered the threads of my brain together and paid using another account, realising I could get the $50 from the cash machine near the supermarket’s entry. Problem solved, if rather too slowly for my sense of self-possession and the rest of the express lane customers’ patience.
When I’d gotten over the blow to my pride, I reflected on how unexpected the kindness of strangers can be.
The offer to pay was made gently and with no fuss. There was no implication that I was foolish or inconsiderate, holding up shoppers with better things to do than wait for me to sort out my transaction. My overalled saviour was sensitive to the situation. Embarrassed, I did not thank him enough. How kind he was, I thought later, how very kind.
It’s easy to forget how thoroughly good most people are. Every day we are battered by multiple examples of humanity behaving badly, from lying American presidents all the way to New Zealand’s violent kindergarten children. You’d have to turn off all media to stop the stream of negativity. Believe me, I’ve seriously considered it.
Feeling that you live in a kind and supportive community is one antidote to the fog of existential despair all this negativity creates in our collective psyches. And here we seem to be struggling, if burgeoning depression and suicide rates are any measure.
One of the unintended effects of the various applications of technology in our lives is increased isolation. And it’s not just that we’re addicted to the endorphin hit we get from our smartphones, the most obvious manifestation of the problem.
Dining out recently, we watched a young couple sit down, take out their phones and ignore each other for most of their meal. In the dimly lit space, their faces glowed, not with appreciation of each other in an intimate, romantic setting, but in reflected light from their screens. When I suggested to my friend the psychologist that she stage some kind of intervention, she rolled her eyes and sighed.
The ubiquitous smartphone is one thing, but social isolation is also increasing because opportunities for routine, everyday interaction are being rapidly eroded.
We bank online, we get cash from a machine, we self-checkout our library books, supermarket and Kmart purchases, we pour our own petrol and pay for it at the pump, and we book travel and accommodation online. We order clothes, food, electronics and almost anything else without any human interaction. We even donate electronically through sites like Givealittle.
Not so long ago, all these functions involved talking to another member of your community.
And it is these interactions that ‘‘help glue a neighbourhood, or a town, together’’, according to Craig Lambert in his book Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day. It’s a mistake to discount everyday interactions with bank tellers, grocery store workers, ticket sellers or librarians as insignificant.
Every time we exchange greetings and chat about the weather or the latest All Blacks or Tall Ferns game, make a request or query, or receive a service or answer, we are affirming our place as part of a community of interdependent people in a relationship of goodwill.
Perhaps we are gaining in ‘‘efficiency’’ – and, as Lambert says, businesses are certainly profiting by having their clients do more and more of the work that was previously part of the service – but we are in danger of losing something far more valuable than efficiency: opportunities to build the kind of bonds between people that keep a community strong, resilient and healthy.
This week at Pak ’n Save, I got chatting to the checkout operator about the horrors of Christmas food, and as I paid – with no embarrassing holdups this time, thank goodness – she wheeled in a trolley for the next customer, an elderly woman whose middle-aged son was painstakingly loading groceries on to the belt.
The checkout operator moved around to help. ‘‘I see her every week,’’ she murmured quietly. ‘‘She works so hard to take care of him.’’ So kind, I thought as I pushed my trolley out to the car, so very kind.
It’s easy to forget how thoroughly good most people are. Every day we are battered by multiple examples of humanity behaving badly.