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No matter how hard you try, you cannot please everyone. You may not be pleased with others as well. It’s important to learn to “let that shit go.”
Here’s an example from The Grocery Life. Let’s say I’m new to the role, and I’m bagging for an experienced (as in career) cashier. When a large basket comes in that cashier can easily swipe products faster than the new person can bag them. A pile forms on the moving belt. The new bagger feels overwhelmed. The cashier with an attitude just keeps rushing the swipes, almost reveling in the unease they are creating.
Contrast that with a different experience, same early weeks of relearning the trade. This young person asked, “Is my speed okay?” I was elated. “Yes, and thank you for asking. I mean, we’re in this together, flooding my zone isn’t helpful and doesn’t get the work done any sooner.”
Now I ask.
When the bagger who is helping me is behind, I will slow my swiping or even start a bag next to me at the register, to help. This bagger-to-cashier flow should be a collaborative process. When one or the other has a chip on their shoulder it can be unpleasant.
I’ve since worked things out with this hyper-cashier. I asked questions about their life. I engaged them in conversations about themselves. I tried to become human to them, rather than just a machine/robot person who can’t keep up with their expert scanning technique.
Learning to deal with people you can’t stand is a life lesson that takes a lot of practice. You can give them a wide berth. Not engage with them at all. But, if you’re forced to work with them have to come up with alternative strategies.
Love them anyway.
Several years ago I was going through a divorce and not doing very well emotionally. I joined an Aikido class. I had done martial arts and tai chi in the past, I knew the discipline and exercise would keep me from isolating in my depression. What I learned was this:
Aikido is about loving your attacker enough to not injure them even as you are protecting yourself or others. Loving your attacker. Loving your antagonists.
I don’t have to be friends with the paramiliary guy. I don’t need to get close to the troll with the quick scan twitch. I just have to make my own peace with them, inside me, and do my job to the best of my ability.
For the most part, my colleages are amazing, friendly, and supportive. Somedays, even the best teammate might fail or let me down. That’s okay. Life is a dance. Learning to dance with those in authority, even if you don’t agree with them, learning to lead by refusing to take up the fight, learning to be centered in your own head and heart and let others behave as they will. That is a huge lesson in shift work. I am the lowest man on the totem pole. I will not be treated unfairly. But, I will also not get my nose out of joint when someone on my team is unpleasant.
Their unhappiness is about their life and not me. My unhappiness is the same. I am in control of how I feel. My approach to life, and to the life as a cashier, is 100% up to me.
[Listen to the Deep Dive explore the concepts of The Happy Cashier.]
The hope I see in others
becomes the hope I have for myself,
my life, and my own journey.
– The Happy Cashier
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