Customer Service Connections

Last night, I fell asleep to Feist's Lonely Lonely. This song puts me into a melancholy ease. I tried to let go of the unavoidably guarded and scattered feeling that lingered on the surface of me from bagging like the produce stains left on my apron. I tried to wash that off too.

After a series of mindless shifts, I fear becoming this with my entire being when I work too many hours with faceless strangers. Guarded. Scattered. When I fell asleep, I thought of the other kind of relationships developed with time. Friends. Family. New and old. Love began to concentrate together on a small point and I began to energize again.

This world is made up of more than customer service connections.

A new morning woke me and once again I protected myself against losing sincerity and everything else genuine in my life. I can last another 8 hours dealing with mundane superficial crap one must perform upon limited intimacy with unappreciative people.

This new move across country was supposed to be a momentum of collecting passion, love and depth to create more and to feel more and to be more in this world for only the things that mattered in my life. Where does all that go when we don’t invest in something solid? What happens to it when our wasted energy goes flying and distributed among people who come in and out with only surface conversations and occasional recognition? Do my customers take a piece of me each time they leave with groceries?

I grew up in the restaurant business where all we could afford is to build those kinds of relationships with our community. The 5000-sq. foot building in the center of a large shopping center of a middle class suburban city filed in people with suits, ties and white-faced families. They loved my dad; he was the infamous bald Chinese guy who traveled from one side of the restaurant and back again like he was on roller skates. Dad voluntarily held 28-hour work days if possible. The restaurant was not work; the restaurant was life. He spent the days making witty comments, customizing orders for the regulars and devoting every moment to pleasing palettes from that mental menu stored in his clever brain. Dad was the restaurant Renaissance Man. The Man behind the fabulous dishes and delicious aromas, the energy and laughter.

We were the Restaurant Kids. My brother and I were in and out of those swinging kitchen doors, wearing over-sized aprons and struggling to follow behind dad’s fast-paced footsteps. We seated and carefully calculated change for hungry customers with a smile.

Our daily interactions were built upon those little meaningless moments with people in and out every day with nothing deeper to root. When the business closed, there was no more need to smile, to please and delight for the sake of survival. And thus, no purpose nor energy to break through the hard surface barrier. The distinction between restaurant and home is work and rest.

“How’s school?” Mom would ask when she picked us up in front of the vacant building. Two hours late.

“Fine,” we would answer in unison. Mom would make a simple dinner and send us off to do homework, then return to the restaurant. And that was the extent of what bound us, what inevitably built around our life outside of the restaurant. The Restaurant Kids evidently meshed into the same category as customers.

Perhaps as a child, it was ingrained at an early age to truly believe that customers are always right. Perhaps this is why bagging and speaking in customer service tongue comes easy. But no matter how long I do this chit chat, I do not want my life to collect minute by minute with meaningless moments and mundane routine. I want it to be filled with people who matter, people who can grow with me and connect deeper than the transactions that happen at check-out. And perhaps one of these days, those customers will see us more than just baggers - but real humans with the capability for real human connection, or at least to appreciate those faces behind counters, stocking shelves and kitchen doors.

Here's to more appreciation on my part.

Paper or Plastic People

In the same way I've spoken about another article titled, "Plastic or Paper", I ended with the idea of seeing people in these two simple categories. Perhaps it simply means, people that matter about themselves, the earth and its people and people who just don't give a rats butt about it. Perhaps it means people who eat healthy and follow health trends and people who eat the same thing without caring. Perhaps

All these food articles I've been catching up at the cashier's rack during the slow days has got me thinking a lot about the revolution of grocery shopping. No more apron wearing women with make-up, high hears, tight-waist hand-stitched cotton dresses and perfectly curled hair. Cans, boxes, microwave meals and frozen peas are no longer the foods of the elite. It seems, over time, we have evolved back into the time of the farmers and hippies.

Though my ancestors were still off fishing and farming off a port town in faraway China, women in America are beginning to choose items from canned, to fresh.

So for research, I have begun to observe and take mental document on the choices my customers make. For the regulars, I will closely observe their skin clarity, alertness, body shape and clothes to compare with their choice of foods. Do all A-type people eat clean and healthy? Do all slobs inject their bodies with alcohol, sugars, high fatty foods and cheese steaks? Do all people with chaotic wallets and untucked shirts buy microwave dinners and Cheetos?

And over time, I would like to find out what makes healthy people healthy?