Treating people right : Lessons from buying shoes
I was buying some shoes at a Charles & Keith shop and realized an important lesson.
I was choosing some shoes to try on and asked this salesman to help me to take some size 8 shoes. He nodded nonchalantly, seemingly quite unhappy about something. Then, he frantically went to search for some shoes. I was thinking, wow how rude can these people be? I know my size is big lar....but no need to be so rude.
But exercising this rule of 'common understanding' I learnt in buddhism class. I looked around the environment. There wasn't much people around, just me and two other ladies trying on shoes. So I just waited by the side. Then I observed there was this seemingly fierce looking lady ordering him around. 'Can I have size 35?' 'Is this size 35?' 'If you don't have the size, can you call Wisma Atria branch?' No wonder that guy was pissed, he was serving this nasty woman for so long.
So I thought to myself, what if I treated him nicely, like how he deserves to be treated. Will he change his attitude towards me? Then I tried this. First, I smiled and asked, 'I am very sorry, but I asked for size 8, if it is not too much of a trouble can you please try to get them for me?' Immediately he looked at me, surprised and went into the store room and got the sizes I wanted...then I found that size 8 for one pair of shoes was too small...so again I politely asked him: 'These are too big, but I think they look very good, can you get for me a smaller size?' Wow....being polite counts...he nodded his head so willingly and came out very quickly to give me a size 7. And all this is happening while the impatient looking woman changed target to turn nasty to another salesgirl.
In fact, when I was nice to him (the salesman), he was doubly nice to me. Not anything like the attitude he has for the nasty customer. I told him size 8 was too big and size 7 was too small. He said, no worries if you like, I can add a padding for you free..I am sure you will feel more comfortable. That was exactly what he did. Then he asked, would you like to be our member it only takes $120...okay it does sound salesman-like...but hey at least I got what I wanted, I got him to talk politely to me and help me the way I wanted. Because I wanted the membership in the first place and I wanted a pair of comfortable shoes.
In Dale Carnegies, 'How to make friends and influence people' I remembered an important lesson. Was to treat people the way that you want others to treat you. That is important. If I treated someone politely, he will try to reciprocate as much as possible. If he or she doesn't, just remember this, it is not your problem, its theirs. So no need to be unhappy about it.
Just a tiny lesson learnt from shopping for shoes.
Hehe...the world is such a wondrous place...human beings are amazing. They just want to be treated right.
Signing off....
P.S. I guess not all times you treat people nicely they also treat you nicely. At times when someone falls sick, I am quite concerned so I ask if he or she is well and how he or she is feeling etc. etc. I will also ask the person if he or she wants to go to lunch together if he or she is alone. But at times people just do not want to reciprocate. But I will try my best not to bear grudges because these seeds of grudges go a long way and end up usually in unbalanced and unhappy relationships.
I will continue to treat the person nicely.
But one thing is I will never bend over backwards to help him or her. Whenever, I help a person I must be sure that I will not need him/her to return me any favour. Helping is just purely out of sincerity and there is no strings attached. That way it makes me feel better if a person does not reciprocate my kindness...
I was choosing some shoes to try on and asked this salesman to help me to take some size 8 shoes. He nodded nonchalantly, seemingly quite unhappy about something. Then, he frantically went to search for some shoes. I was thinking, wow how rude can these people be? I know my size is big lar....but no need to be so rude.
But exercising this rule of 'common understanding' I learnt in buddhism class. I looked around the environment. There wasn't much people around, just me and two other ladies trying on shoes. So I just waited by the side. Then I observed there was this seemingly fierce looking lady ordering him around. 'Can I have size 35?' 'Is this size 35?' 'If you don't have the size, can you call Wisma Atria branch?' No wonder that guy was pissed, he was serving this nasty woman for so long.
So I thought to myself, what if I treated him nicely, like how he deserves to be treated. Will he change his attitude towards me? Then I tried this. First, I smiled and asked, 'I am very sorry, but I asked for size 8, if it is not too much of a trouble can you please try to get them for me?' Immediately he looked at me, surprised and went into the store room and got the sizes I wanted...then I found that size 8 for one pair of shoes was too small...so again I politely asked him: 'These are too big, but I think they look very good, can you get for me a smaller size?' Wow....being polite counts...he nodded his head so willingly and came out very quickly to give me a size 7. And all this is happening while the impatient looking woman changed target to turn nasty to another salesgirl.
In fact, when I was nice to him (the salesman), he was doubly nice to me. Not anything like the attitude he has for the nasty customer. I told him size 8 was too big and size 7 was too small. He said, no worries if you like, I can add a padding for you free..I am sure you will feel more comfortable. That was exactly what he did. Then he asked, would you like to be our member it only takes $120...okay it does sound salesman-like...but hey at least I got what I wanted, I got him to talk politely to me and help me the way I wanted. Because I wanted the membership in the first place and I wanted a pair of comfortable shoes.
In Dale Carnegies, 'How to make friends and influence people' I remembered an important lesson. Was to treat people the way that you want others to treat you. That is important. If I treated someone politely, he will try to reciprocate as much as possible. If he or she doesn't, just remember this, it is not your problem, its theirs. So no need to be unhappy about it.
Just a tiny lesson learnt from shopping for shoes.
Hehe...the world is such a wondrous place...human beings are amazing. They just want to be treated right.
Signing off....
P.S. I guess not all times you treat people nicely they also treat you nicely. At times when someone falls sick, I am quite concerned so I ask if he or she is well and how he or she is feeling etc. etc. I will also ask the person if he or she wants to go to lunch together if he or she is alone. But at times people just do not want to reciprocate. But I will try my best not to bear grudges because these seeds of grudges go a long way and end up usually in unbalanced and unhappy relationships.
I will continue to treat the person nicely.
But one thing is I will never bend over backwards to help him or her. Whenever, I help a person I must be sure that I will not need him/her to return me any favour. Helping is just purely out of sincerity and there is no strings attached. That way it makes me feel better if a person does not reciprocate my kindness...
Comments