Okay, so I went to the cleaners this past Monday, the first day of my 'working' spring vacation. I had a huge bag of clothes, as it's not often that I even get to go to the cleaners (doing laundry every week is enough of a challenge). When I do go, though, I always have a boat-load of clothes to be cleaned.
This is my regular cleaners, and putting 2 and 2 together, it became obvious to me that the white folks who own the cleaners are giving ownership over to an Asian family (an Asian woman was standing next to the white women who normally wait on me, learning what they do).
So, in addition to the clothes that need cleaning, there are 3 pairs of brand-new jeans that need to be hemmed. Usually I take them elsewhere to be hemmed, but to cut down on time, I did it all here. However, when the white women waiting on me told me they don't hem pants unless they clean them, too, I told them 'Never mind; I'll take the pants to be hemmed somewhere else and just pay my bill for the cleaning of my dress clothes." At my statement, the Asian woman held onto the 3 pairs of jeans and told me they'd hem them without cleaning them. What transpired was really interesting...
The white women insisted that the rule was to only hem pants if the customer paid to have them cleaned there, too. Politely, while trying to hurry with the rest of my order, the Asian woman told them, "It's okay; I take care of it," meaning she'd handle the exception. The white women's voices got louder, even saying there was no way to put in the computer hemming of pants without cleaning as well. Finally, the Asian woman, struggling over language, won the battle, getting the white women to use the old-fashioned way of receipting customers -- the duplicate copy receipt book -- so that I could receive the service desired.
Witnessing this long interchange, I admired the Asian woman's wisdom, though I felt sorry for her. Though her language and newness to that particular store's policy seemed lacking, she was really the smartest of the bunch. She saw what the two white women missed: the big picture. She saw the importance of making a small exception for a regular paying customer (who had a huge order) over dogmatically following the rules. Instantly I knew I'd return to the store, more often now than ever, because of this Asian woman's wisdom.
4 comments:
Are you implying that she was wise because she was Asian? Or are you just using ethnicity as a way to describe the three women? ;o)
Hey, Erika! I noted the Asian woman's ethnicity because she's Asian and that's how I knew to describe her. Same is true about the other folks; I mentioned their ethnicity/race and gender. No hidden meaning. Just admiration for the person who had/exercised the most common sense in the situation. What stood out to me was not the person's racial/ethnic identify or gender, but the response to a real-life situation: the choice we always have of sticking to our old way of thinking -- holding to it vehemently -- rather than opening our eyes to a smarter way of thinking/doing. I know I miss this a lot, and sometimes little situations in life are useful in pointing out the big life lessons we often miss.
I was just messing with you Chicagoans and your mentions of race.
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