It Won't Kill You to be Pleasant

The windshield wipers on my Subaru were worn out, and with the forecast calling for heavy rain for a couple of days, I stopped by my local O’Reilly Auto Parts this week to get a new set.

I picked up the wipers from a rack near the middle of the store and went to the checkout counter. A woman about 30 years old came out of the back of the store and met me at the cash register.

“I understand you offer free installation on these,” I said brightly. (It’s hardly a secret – there was a sign outside the store advertising free installation, and a similar sign right above the rack holding the windshield wipers.)

She hesitated. “Well, if you don’t know how to do it yourself, we can,” she said with a touch of snideness.

It was the wrong response.

Now, if she’d eagerly said something like, “Oh yes, we can do that for you,” or something friendly along those lines, there’s a good chance I would have said it wasn’t necessary and done it myself. I’ve been installing wipers on my cars for decades before she was even born, it was a sunny but not-too-hot day, and the task would take me a maximum of three minutes, including unboxing the wipers.

“Your signs don’t say free installation for those who can’t do it themselves; they just say you offer free installation,” I pointed out helpfully.

Now her attitude shifted from snide to sullen. Without speaking, she rang the purchase up, I charged the purchase to my credit card and pocketed the receipt. I picked up the wipers and she followed me, still silent, out to the parking lot. I handed her one of the wipers and while she unboxed it, I unboxed the other. She installed both wipers on the car and turned back toward the store wordlessly.

“Thank you for your help,” I said, as I tossed the wiper boxes into the trash can on the sidewalk. She went back inside, still without saying anything.

I certainly can’t know why she decided to behave as she did. She could be a great person having an off day. Maybe she’s normally charming and outgoing, but her dog died yesterday. Maybe the customer before me had been a jerk. Maybe she’s tired of hearing old guys like me talk about the days when we had to adjust carburetors and set points on our cars. And maybe she just hates her job and everyone in the world. I’ll never know, so I certainly can’t judge her or her motives. But for her performance in this specific customer interaction, I can confidently award her an F.

Many people today recognize their employment as a tenuous thing. A longtime friend is being forced out of a job at a place he’s worked for well more than 30 years. A family member who works at a company with questionable financial stability is looking for another job before the company collapses. Similar stories abound; you doubtless know some yourself. And many people, not just within my circle of friends and family but across the nation, have justifiable fears that the rising use of artificial intelligence may make their current jobs disappear and make finding new ones more difficult.

So, it seems to me that this could be a powerful incentive to make personal interactions in the workplace the best they can possibly be. It’s obviously no guarantee of job security in these uncertain times. But if workforce reductions or job cuts are coming, who’s more likely to be retained: Employees who cooperate with and support their colleagues, whose positive demeanor and welcoming attitude build strong relationships with customers and goodwill for the company? Or complainers and malcontents, and those who do the bare minimum required and whose words and actions suggest they’d rather be somewhere else?

As for artificial intelligence, it can already do many things, but I’ve not seen any A.I. program that can convincingly imitate the warmth of a positive human interaction. It might do better in the future, but it’s not there yet. A live human being interested in others still has an edge. I think that distinction between human workers and A.I. may become even more important in the coming years.

Maybe we can all be just a little nicer to each other.

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