Kind to Clerks

essaysbysean.blogspot.com 

“In the end, only kindness matters.”

Jewel, singing These Hands

"She's a living being! Not a means to an end! 
Captain Dylan Hunt of the Andromeda, to folks wanting to revive a critically ill woman to help them.

Hello Reader,

Got kindness?

It’s late November. Grey and cloudy. You may have seen that perennial favorite, The Value of a Smile at Christmas. So true. Now, how about the value of you and me being kind to clerks, during all seasons, regardless of cloudy weather?

Kindness is its own reward. After all, being kind reminds me that, unlike how I might have felt when I was unemployed, I am not alone, not some hard billiard ball on a cold plain bouncing off alien spheres: No, I’m a part of our warm human community. To be kind means I have to get off my couch and out of the house; kind means opening my eyes; kind means widening my heart for the priceless grace of seeing the careworn shoes of others. And that’s why tender green Boy Scouts will do good deeds, and seasoned old capitalists will give aide to charity. 

Being frugal, I do nearly all my shopping at big stores. Nevertheless, there is a local convenience store where I go inside saying, of course, a few words for our brief transaction, and, beyond that, I often manage an extra sentence or two. One time, the clerk remarked I wasn’t wearing my usual (My neighbor Totoro) baseball cap. Another day, he told me I was his favorite customer. I walked out into the night feeling blank. I didn’t know what to feel—maybe angry. Obviously his less frugal more important customers, the ones who fly in the door more often than I, and buy more stuff than I, aren’t his favorites. How baffling. Why were his frequent flyers ignoring him? Did they at least give him a smile? I guess I was angry.

In Calgary, by chance, I once met two excited teen age girls, in from the town of “Chesty,” who assumed I was visiting Calgary too. “You are our favorite customer! We like how you leave us magazines to read.” I knew them from the Chestermere donut shop, one where a young man had thanked me, saying he especially liked how I left a magazine-sized book on how to draw comics, manga, in the style of Japan and South Korea.  It was at the Chestermere Safeway (grocery store) that a cashier had told me that another cashier had asked her to tell me, “her favorite customer,” that she had moved to British Columbia. …I will confess I’m not positive which cashier she was. My point is: I have credibility for an essay on being nice to clerks.

Kindness. Knowing that smiles enrich the giver as much as the receiver, I “set my intention” to be nice. I remember what an old man once said: “I try to have everyone come away from me without feeling worse.” Also I remind myself that clerks may be on auto-pilot, amidst a dull routine, tired, with shoes that hurt their poor feet. I could therefore smile, and at least make eye contact, to welcome them as fellow beings. It logically follows that I could try to see them not as my means, but an end in themselves.

I got “people as means verses ends” thing off some European philosopher. (Kant) He thought regarding people as a means was beneath one’s dignity. Too often people are undignified, and don’t even know it: Some folks, for example, can be cruel and callous towards a professional ball player. To them, he is merely a paid means to their entertainment. 

Meanwhile an amateur, such as an Olympian, we watch with benevolence: She is not being paid, she is not there to be used by us, as a “sports object,” but instead she acts for herself and the “spirit of the Games.” Olympians will still compete even if the TV cameras are broken and the crowds absent.—And hey, don’t expect any cameras from Yankee imperialists: those clowns, while covering Vancouver 2010, couldn’t even show K.D. Lang singing Hallelujah. Not very kind to Canadians, eh?

Here’s a scene: I was in the “lobby” of Sobeys liquor store, just past the two cashiers. A  middle aged lady stood at a card table to give away free samples. Considering that maybe her feet hurt, and without treating her as a robot with a recorded sales spiel, I chose the red wine over the brown beer sample and some sort of novelty drink. She told me the red was made with “a hint of oak.” I shopped around the aisles, came back, and brightened her day by saying, “Some trivia for you: Speaking of ‘hint of oak,’ there’s a famous perfume in Europe that uses a hint of moss… but it’s not sustainable, because all the moss is being used up.” 

She was all ears, so I told her of going to a perfume exhibit (at Sutton House) with laboratory experts as part of the exhibit. As we talked, a cashier came over. Last week she had helped me settle on a backpack. She said, “That cooler pack you bought? I got one for my husband.” I nodded back to her, including both ladies in our talk, and said, “That’s the one where hubby will have a bottle opener on the front shoulder strap, (looking towards the first lady) and the insides are lined with reflective aluminum.” (for Steam Whistle beer) We three continued our moments of good fellowship. 

As Christmas approaches, I think even nonChristians can agree with Tiny Tim: “God bless us, everyone.” 

Sean Crawford

November

Calgary

2019

Footnotes: 

~Thinking of clerks, I remembered what a grandmother advised a girl about her date: If your date is less than nice and polite to your waiter, then he’s “not marriage material,” for he will one day be less than polite to you.

~Speaking of manga, and My Neighbor Totoro baseball cap, the last time I pointed curious parents towards specific animated comics, anime, was in URLs Again, archived September 2019. You know, I still haven’t posted my first URL piece: So I guess now I’ll save it for Christmas.

~I mentioned the perfume exhibit in my essay about Sutton House, archived as Welcome Without Savoir Faire, March 2018. 

~I’m not trying to offensively push onto you my 25th of December religion, but here are two sweetly offensive religious songs:

A song to offend cynics: (link) It’s Jewel singing These Hands (with God at the end)

A song to offend homophobes: (link) It’s out-of-closet K.D. Lang, but not at Vancouver 2010, no, it’s the one where she bows to Leonard Cohen, the creator of Hallelujah.

~The way I avoid feeling “used” by rude web surfers is by requiring my dear readers to take two seconds to go to my archives— because I am not a “link object!” 

(Note: When surfers of my Death of Buffy piece (January 2012) were impolite, I went back and took out the links I had made for them. But I left the essay) 

You may depend on it: Impolite people will never make a two-second effort. See No Links is Good Links archived July 2012.