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Smile! Put Your Best You Forward
Your smile could brighten up someone else's day—and yours
Featured Author:
Brittany E. Hudson
Brittany Hudson is a seasoned business professional living on the South Shore of Massachusetts with her husband, Greg and 18 month-old daughter, Carli. Brittany has become an advocate for working families in America and is working to create a strategic resource for working families to find balance in family and career life as well as political action for the rights of parents in the workplace. Brittany writes a weekly column about being a working mom.
Check out her blog, Career Parent.
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Brittany E. Hudson | Excelle
July 31, 2008
It’s interesting to me how many facets a person has. There is the Work Me, Mommy Me, Wife Me, Daughter Me, Friend Me, Sales Rep Me, then there is the me that the world sees. That Me is a face in the crowd. The world’s only opinion of that Me is squarely grounded on what kind of experience they have with me whether it be calling a customer service line to complain about my cell phone service (or lack thereof) or responding back to the checkout girl at the grocery store with “I am good and how are you?”.
I am always baffled when I startle a store clerk out of their customer greeting routine by not only answering their stale “how are you today?” with “good, how are you?” and actually look at the questioner and wait for a response. You’d be amazed at the smiles and levity in the conversation during my grocery bagging time between me and the checkout personnel. They even remember me when I come in. Why? Because that Me was a good experience and they are more or less expecting that Me to come back when they see my face in the store again. They wouldn’t expect any less. To them I am a “nice lady.”
Let’s reverse it. What if they asked the time worn question again and I responded by raising my voice and complaining that the grocery carts were all wet from being left out in the rain, I couldn’t find my favorite yogurt and that there were not enough lines open at checkout for the 100th time. They’d remember me all right and they’d be hoping I didn’t come in when they were working! My face in their line would be met with distress and sighing. They would think I was a miserable person who was out to make everyone in my path join me in my bitterness. What a thought!
It can be so easy to get caught up in problems of the day, week, life and find yourself in that little self-focused bubble that helps you forget everyone around you. It seems that the worst day of your life has an interesting way of being met with the newspaper sales person who has called you at dinner time for the umpteenth time this year.
Wait… pause… breathe.
Boy, it would be so easy to fire off and hang up. Who are you hanging up on? A single mom who hasn’t seen her kids all day working a third job to make ends meet? A kid who is trying to put himself through college? A person whose best friend died just days ago? We never think about these scenarios when faced with the anonymous person who interacts with us. To us, they are Anonymous Them and we have no idea who they are. To them we are Anonymous Us, the unfeeling, uncaring person who treats them like garbage for inconveniencing us.
Next time someone asks, “How are you?” please recognize the person behind the question and the job and answer with a smile. There is a person behind that face. That life that has seen all kinds of things and you just will never know where they have been but trust me, they’ve been there. How do I know? Because I’ve “been there”. Haven’t we all? How about a smile and a “hello” for the office cleaning personnel whom you know doesn’t speak English. It doesn’t matter if they know what you said or how to respond. A smile is universal, everyone knows that language. There should be National Smile Day. I think we would all feel better.
Maddie
about 1 year ago
98 comments
I remember reading a book about body language a LONG time ago wherein the author discussed people of certain occupations as being considered, "Non-people" by most of the US population. People like valets, waitresses, supermarket clerks. I think it's a deplorable sign of our inhumanity when we allow ourselves to treat people in these occupations as though they are not human. And one way of doing that is by not relating to them--looking them in the eye, saying hello, answering when they ask you how they are and then, yes, asking them how THEY are in return. One problem in Los Angeles is frequently a language issue. But be honest! How many people in LA really don't know how to say, "Hello. I'm fine. How are you?" in Spanish? As for the plethora of other languages, there's a better excuse. But a smile is (virtually) universal. (Some countries don't show their teeth when they smile because it's considered a sign of aggression.) Now, on the other hand: How many times when you're being "helped" by someone who is a salesclerk, a customer service person, a support person on your internet provider, do you find that YOU are being treated not only like a "non-person" but like an annoyance? Hold the phone! I'm the customer! You're supposed to help me! Yet so many times, in our society, the people we count on to assist us really would prefer that we simply drop dead in our place. They don't want to help us! It's too much trouble! They might actually need to DO SOMETHING! This inconsiderate behavior toward our fellow humans didn't start with one side or the other. It was a gradual thing. As Tommy Lee Jones says in "In the Valley of Elah," (I paraphrase) "I think this sort of thing started when people stopped saying, 'Sir' and 'Ma'am' and 'please' and thank you.'" We are all responsible for maintaining a healthy degree of courtesy in the course of our daily lives. And, as parents, we are responsible for insisting that our children do so as well. And, at least among my female friends, we have given each other permission to correct each other's children if they do not behave like polite young boys and girls. It does take a village.
Account Removed
about 1 year ago
:-)