Life is Beautiful!

I was in Centre Point today morning to buy some winter clothings. I saw an attractive T-Shirt on the shelf. Normally CentrePoint keeps some sample sizes on the hangar for people to try out. This is to prevent people from soiling all the dresses. Unable to find one of similar size on the hangar, I called across to a Philippino Sales Lady and asked her whether I can get one to try the size. She asked me to take one from the shelf. I responded "I don't want to give you additional work. If you have one on the hangar, I would rather try it than make you fold the one on the shelf again". The look on her face was one of sheer happiness, relief and amazement. She came to me crossing two rows with a huge smile and saying, "Sir, that is first nice thing I have heard in this job for a long, long time. Some one genuinely cares for my work", she personally took out my size from the shelf, removed the packaging and opened it out for me to try with a huge huge smile. On my way to trying out the T Shirt for size, while I was happy that I gave her something to cheer about (though what I did to make her so happy, I still could not fathom), it left me wondering as to why is it that such a small comment made a big impact on her. Is it that she is treated shabbily in the workplace and by customers? Is it that customer take sales people for granted and order them around?. Why can't we all show a bit of humaneness and old world courtesy in our interactions?. The world will be a much better place.

In the afternoon, I had gone despite poor health, to honour a friends invitation to attend his company's social responsibility campaign on plastics at Avenues. On the way back, I stopped for fueling. It was one of those self service stations where you have to pay the money at the exit. There was a 4 lane queue all converging in front of the cash counter. I saw an old man in a GMC on my left and out of courtesy to an elderly person, I waved him to go ahead. Next thing I felt was a slight bump. The guy behind me had deliberately bumped me to show his protest. Since my car is old and identifying another scratch would have meant resurrecting Sherlock Holmes, I did not react. Once I paid the bill, this guy overtook me, cut in front of me, shook his fist and drove off. That was the thanks I got for being courteous to an old man.

Life is Beautiful!!!!