Went to the supermarket for lunch yesterday. Decided to go for French roast chicken.

Girl in front of me ordered, ‘I want this quinoa. Can you heat up the quinoa for me?’ She didn’t seem particularly happy to be there. Perhaps she was hoping to get back to eat at her desk asap.. Maybe catching up with emails.

Lady at counter said ‘no we don’t heat up salads.’

A little grumpy, didn’t even look at the attendant, she replied, ‘ok it’s fine I’ll take it anyway.’

So I told myself, ‘I will be nice to this counter lady, since it seems that her day must be not that easy!

I’m naturally jolly, so it wasn’t hard to show her my good vibe. I went up, looked at her, made eye contact, smiled, pointed at the menu, ‘this salad option – how big is it? Which ones can I have?’

‘You can choose 3.’

Pleasantly surprised at the number of options, I smiled again, ‘Oh nice!’

I already had my eye on the quinoa and couscous. I couldn’t decide between the red rice and potato salad, so I asked, ‘these 2- which one is better? I can’t decide..’

To my surprise, she whispered, ‘I’ll give you both. Don’t tell anyone.’ I even detected a little upturn in the corner of her lips!

I was really surprised!!! 😀

This shows all we need is common courtesy in our daily interactions with people we come across, even though they may be the bus driver, the cleaner, or the barista. It’s not about manipulating people. I about just being ourselves. We would smile at people we are close to, wouldn’t we?

It shows if we go to people with a good attitude, people will go out of their way to do things for us! The girl before me might have been able to go her quinoa heated up if she’d just smiled!