Hello and welcome back to our series of RK being a bad person. Check out the last incident here. Now, let's move on to the latest case: the polite sales assistant. What follows is a simplified account of the event.
I was at the local department store, in the department of my favorite clothing brand. I had fifteen minutes to spare before a meeting. A sales assistant approached and asked if I needed help. I said, "no, thank you." A few seconds later the perfect navy blue sweater presented itself in a nearby rack. I picked up my size and turned towards the fitting rooms. The same sales assistant appeared again.
"The fitting room is this way," she said and nodded towards the direction where I was going. "Do you want me to take the sweater there for you?"
I did not seem to understand what she wanted. "You'll take it there for me? While I walk in that same direction?"
"Yes." She seemed to sense aggression in my voice because she almost turned away.
Luckily, I finally understood what she wanted, so I held the sweater in my hand towards her and said: "Okay, sure, thank you."
She took the sweater from me. I used the opportunity to look at a few more racks before heading over to the fitting rooms where the sweater was waiting for me, nicely hanging in one of the rooms. I tried the sweater on, and it fit perfectly. When I emerged from the room, the sales assistant asked how it was, and I told her with a smile that it was perfect. She instructed me to meet her at the cashier, and I left the store with the sweater.
***
You see, my interpretation of what she wanted differed from what she intended, and her interpretation of what I said differed from what I meant.
I thought that she had presumed that I don't know where the fitting rooms are and how fitting a sweater works. I thought she had presumed that I was there for the first time, or that I looked like I was about to steal the sweater. I had shopped at that particular department and received good service before, but this seemed different, and I couldn't immediately understand if this was an upgrade or a downgrade. Luckily I soon realized that it was obviously the former.
She just wanted to provide supreme and individual customer service by helping me with the logistics. Perhaps she had even judged from my appearance that I was wealthy and that supreme customer service could be the difference between a sale or no sale.
I'm such a jerk. I need to start paying attention to this. From now on I'll remind myself to suppose that people think highly of me and that if their behavior seems odd, it's more likely out of politeness than the opposite. What's the worst that could happen?
RK
