In the local supermarket one day, I rolled my shopping cart to what appeared to be the shortest line of customers. I was surprised to see a cart full of groceries waiting to be loaded onto the conveyor belt. The customer was not there. I simply moved ahead and put the five or six things I planned to buy onto the conveyor belt. That’s when the person who put the full cart next to the conveyor belt and left it there showed up, a short, round, middle-aged Caucasian woman with graying brown hair. I turned around and told her, “You weren’t here, so I took advantage of the opportunity.”
“That’s not nice,” she grumbled.
Surprised at her response, I looked at her with feigned exasperation, rolled my eyes, took a deep breath, and said, “Really?” I tried to put as much indignation as possible into my reply, just that one word. Then I turned around to pay for the things I wanted.
The supermarket clerk was a young Latina woman who seemed to be “phoning in” her work. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, this meant she was doing as little as possible while still being considered a competent worker. As a retail clerk in a grocery store, this meant she would never go above and beyond the call of duty. For her, there would be no lightweight banter with customers about the weather, sports, or any other topic, trivial or otherwise. She had a protective shield that kept out all incursions of sociability. On the other hand, she was not lonely; she just didn’t want to complicate her life any more than necessary. She did her work dispassionately and held the store record for accuracy. As some might have said at the time, “She kept it professional.”
I completed my purchase. I turned and saw that the same shopping cart full of groceries again sat unattended and unloaded at the end of the counter. The woman was gone again. The line at register four grew longer by the minute, and the other customers in the line for register four started grumbling in frustration.
I told the clerk, “Excuse me, the lady left again and her groceries are still in the cart. She did the same thing when I got here, and there are other customers in line.”
The clerk, shaken from her reverie, turned to me and said, “Hunh? Oh. Apologies. I’ll get someone to take care of it.”
She got on the store’s public address system and announced, “Customer service on register four.”
Unsurprisingly, almost predictably, just as one of the kids who put the groceries into bags for the customers pulled her full shopping cart from the area, the woman returned to register four.
On my way out the door, I heard her scream, “What are you doing? You can’t do that! I’ve been shopping at this store for 30 years! This was a lie, as the store opened only two years before this incident. The manager reminded her that she was not supposed to leave a full shopping cart of groceries at a register and leave it unloaded in the way that she did because it was inconsiderate to the other customers and the clerks who served them.
She threatened to contact the store’s company headquarters, and the manager told her to go right ahead, that it was her right to do so. Then he told her, “Our company has a policy that says we do not have to put up with rude, inconsiderate customers. Seriously, madam, you left a full cart of groceries unattended at one of our registers for several minutes and expected to remain at the front of the line. That is what we call a lack of consideration for others. Most of us learned basic things like treating others the way we want to be treated at home and during the early years of elementary school. You go right ahead and contact my supervisor; here is his card. If you still want to buy the things in this shopping cart, please get in line like all the other customers. Have a nice day.” The manager then turned around, surprised at the small crowd of onlookers. Further, they applauded and cheered him for standing up to the rude woman.
One customer told him, “Hey man, I’m glad you told her off. A lot of people these days mistake bad manners for strength and power. I think this was modeled by a lot of people involved in our country’s politics, but thanks for what you said.”
As for the inconsiderate woman, she quietly left the store and vowed never to patronize the place again. When she got home, she told her nephew what happened and tried to get him to understand the reason for her anger. The nephew saw through her flimsy rationalization.
“Aunt Cassandra, did you leave a cart full of stuff at the cash register or not? I mean, what do you expect me to do about it? I learned a new word today. You were very insouciant. That means you showed a casual lack of concern for others. You’re a grown woman and you acted like a spoiled toddler. You know Uncle Roy isn’t going to do anything about any of this. Look, if you want, give me the shopping list and I’ll go get the groceries. Problem solved. Hey, do you want some cannabis? I have some capsules that will help you relax and calm down without making you high. I’ll see you later; I gotta stop by the MJC (Modesto Junior College) bookstore and get a book I ordered for one of my classes.” Then the nephew left the house.