It’s a Saturday morning, and I have been queueing at a supermarket checkout for a felt eternity. As have all my fellow queuers. Doing your groceries on a Saturday morning, you would expect some queueing. But this time, there was a special reason to the special length and the slow motion of the queue – there was a training session in progress. A new cashier was being shown the ropes by a seasoned hand. Both of them were doing their level best to deal with the situation, and I especially admired the patience of the supervisor and the fact that the poor trainee was not going completely bonkers. But really: a training session – on a SATURDAY MORNING…. The only thing that this achieves, is the double whammy of putting the employees under unnecessary stress and wasting the precious lifetime of clients.
When my turn eventually came, I said as much to the seasoned employee. As much as I appreciate the need for people to learn, to do this on a Saturday morning is beyond stupid. She agreed wholeheartedly, and explained that they had mentioned this to the person giving the order, but that order stood regardless.
Now, I am really scratching my head, asking myself: Who could be so far removed from the real life of that supermarket (actually any supermarket), and still be authorized to give such orders? And/or, should the order have been given by someone close to daily business, such as the branch manager, how could that person live in such a bubble, that he is not aware or does not care about the effects of his actions on clients and fellow employees?
And not only on the clients and the employees. Because things like these have second and third order effects. Say, a client is so annoyed by the queueing that he schlepps his annoyance on to the bakery and the butcher’s he visits next, so that the poor employees there might have to bear the brunt of the bad temper. That, again, might tarnish a part or the rest of their day, and they might be carrying these bad vibes home, where they then unfold in various ways.
Thus, a stupid order given unthinkingly by someone who is obviously unaware of the ground that order falls on, can send out ripples that tarnish and waste peoples’ lifetime. Either directly (like for the queueing shoppers) or indirectly, by tarnishing the following sequence of events with negative energy. All of this takes time and energy away that could be spent on positive endeavours, like giving good advice to clients, tending to their real needs or having a good time with your partner and/or kids when you come home.
There is a lot of talk about “purpose” in the corporate world these days. I would believe, that not wasting peoples‘ lifetime and stressing them out would be the ultimate one.
(c) Sabine Breit