I was sewing new cushions for my RV dining benches when I realized I was a bit short on material. I quickly ran to the nearest superstore. I went to the fabric station and found my fabric, but there was no employee to cut the fabric and price it. I hit the call button. I waited and waited. I hit the button again, several times.

After literally twenty minutes, I started to roll out my fabric so that when an employee showed up it would be ready for cutting and would expedite this process. Yet still, no one came.

I was still standing there when two ladies come up to the table with bolts of fabric.

Lady #1: “Hi, can you get these really quick? We are in a hurry.”

Me: “No, honey, I don’t work here.”

Lady #2: “Well, you certainly look official!”

I looked down at my outfit. I was wearing patterned leggings, a pro-marijuana T-shirt, and a mask with a word that means something obscene in another language. I started laughing and they got mad. They threatened to call a manager. I was about to tell them to hurry up and call because I was still waiting, but just then, the worker showed up.

A woman comes into our store without a mask.

Me: “Ma’am, you must wear a mask in order to shop here.”

Woman: “You are a literal Nazi! This is ridiculous!”

I’ve never been so close to losing my cool. She shouted at my coworker and me for almost ten minutes.

The worst part was that she had a mask in her purse that she finally put on after all of that. It was a flimsy cloth one that had “MIND CONTROL” hand-painted on the front.

I overheard a coworker talking to a customer over the phone.

Coworker: “Well, when a Mommy Phone and a Daddy Phone love each other very much, they like to BlueTooth…”

I work in a boutique store that only sells products made by the company that owns it. Our customers can be a tough and demanding crowd.

On a slow day, a customer I’ve never seen before comes in with an expensive item made by our company that her boyfriend has given to her for a recent occasion. The item has just broken. She is distressed about the situation but is polite and undemanding.

Customer: “Can this be fixed, and what would it cost?”

After examining her item, I determined that it was defective, and per our store policy, I exchanged it for a new one. She left, pleased with the outcome. I thought no more about it because to me it was an ordinary transaction.

A few days later, the customer came into the store clutching a paper bundle. I was afraid there might be a problem with her replacement item, but not so! She had brought me a large bouquet of flowers to thank me for helping her the week before!

I thanked her profusely and she left.

I never saw her again. Her gratitude and appreciation made me humble because I really was just doing my job. She showed me that you never know when your actions might make someone’s day.

Related:
Kindness In Bloom, Part 2
Kindness In Bloom

I was hanging clothes, and a very nice regular came up and asked me about whether a place we had formerly lived was more or less racist than here. It was a perfectly nice discussion, mind you.

Me: “People choose different groups to be racist about in different places.”

Another customer broke into the conversation.

Customer: *Proudly* “You’re right! My people absolutely hate Mexicans!”

She went on and on. I started to walk away and she complained about that, so I stopped.

Me: “I’m a volunteer. I don’t have to listen to your racist crap just to keep my job. They’d rather have me here than you.”

We didn’t have to throw her out. She stomped out, all pissed that we weren’t a captive audience like paid workers who need their jobs.