Changed

May 28, 2013

Compassion is overrated, don’t you think? I waited outside the library this morning in the drizzle. Upon spotting a figure through the glass I knocked on the door. The heavy-set woman with frizzy brown shoulder-length hair ambled to the door with a scowl on her face. She didn’t bother to mask the problematic request to come in out of the unexpected disastrous weather and sit to await the opening of the building in 20 minutes. The door closed once again while she evidently went to ask the Powers That Be if I could be allowed on the premises. “OK, this is not what we usually do but you can come in.” Wow, I am blown away by the sympathetic glare!

A crumpled wad of receipt and coins were pressed into my hands at the Office Max while faxing several documents. The "benevolent and generous" young man answered the telephone, interrupting his explanation of the mass of complicated buttons in the process to send off a long-distance paper. I am greatly appalled by the inability to understand the value of service. As a lanky wisp of a girl at eleven, I was taught how to count back change to a customer, smile even when I felt like crying when the customer asked for several dozen coney dogs, five root beers and seven orders of fries while a small village gathered behind him to order their own gob of food. The customer is always right was our adage and no one was to question that philosophy. It was with pride and conviction my parents trained their crew to serve the masses at the A&W in Middleton, Wisconsin. Has the commitment to the client gone by the way of the dinosaur?

We link the hands with our children, open the heavy oak door for the upstairs neighbor with loaded arms, grasp the end of a leash, shake hands with new friends, pull out a chair for the elderly man at the library, and lend a hand to a friend at the Laundromat. We are one, bonded.