It was 92 degrees and I desperately needed to find shade while waiting for my car to pass its annual state inspection. I hunkered down on a shady bench outside a tobacco shop in an adjacent strip mall. It was the first bench I saw. For the next 45 minutes, beginning around 10:45am, I witnessed six different customers be turned away by an associate who said they would be opening closer to Noon despite a sign on the door that said “open” and posted store hours from 10-5 daily.
A typical exchange went like this:
Customer – [attempts to open the shop’s door]
Customer – [knocks on the locked door]
Employee – answers door upon hearing a knock and says, “sorry we are closed, we’ll be opening in about another hour.”
Customer – “Oh, really? You can’t help me now? I made a special trip.”
Employee – “I’m sorry. You’ll need to come back later. We’ll be open until 6:30pm tonight if that helps.”
No empathy. No explanation.
Just six eager customers turned away during a pandemic.
Now, I’m hardly one to support the habit of tobacco consumption but I can’t seem to find a good reason why a capable employee had the time to open the door six times but didn’t have enough time to serve the customer. The store associate didn’t give a reason.
Empathy is always needed. It shows you care and also validates the feelings of someone who is mad, sad or frustrated.
I wonder how many of those 6 customers will return later versus finding a competitor in the next town over.