I was in the grocery the other day, gazing longingly at the massive selection of ice cream available to fill my “sweet tooth”, when a clerk asked if she could assist me.
What’s that, I thought, an offer of help in a big-box grocery store? Nice! I told her I couldn’t find the flavor I was looking for – in spite of the fact that there were at least 45 varieties in the case! She offered to look in the case on my behalf; to which I replied it wasn’t necessary since I had looked and didn’t see it. She insisted. After she, too, couldn’t find the flavor I wanted, she asked me to wait while she checked a case around the corner. Once again, I told her it wasn’t necessary, and once again he insisted. She returned a moment later, advising it wasn’t there either, but offered to check the back supply room, in case it had arrived and just hadn’t been added to the front-of-the store inventory. At this point, I felt obligated since she was so eager to please. She returned about 4 minutes later, dismayed that she didn’t have any good news. I thanked her profusely and settled on another flavor – just so that her efforts weren’t for naught (and so I would have some ice cream for later that night!).
This young lady could have easily ignored me and gone about her work of stocking the shelves, but she made the decision to also serve the customer – not just stock the shelves.
We all have a choice when we put our feet on the floor each morning – to make it a great day by our thoughts and actions, or to do just enough to get by. The icing on the cake (can you tell I like sweets?) is that serving others releases the “happy hormone” dopamine and makes us feel good.
As Zig Ziglar once said, “You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.”
Now, go look for someone you can serve….