Today's story is a lesson for the 20-something's out there who have to learn that taking credit where credit isn't due can come back and bite you in the butt.
I was at the local Schnuck's supermarket this week, there to pick up some Icelandic cod filets for dinner for that evening. Now, when I go to grocery stores like Schnuck's or Hy-Vee, I'm usually there to pick up a few things. I'm not one who goes in with a food agenda for the week, picking up all types of food to eventually throw out when we decide we'd rather have something else or go out to eat and the food expires in the fridge. Going to the store every day or every two days still maddens my wife, but I don't mind heading in five or six times a week. Especially since we live an equadistant three minutes from both Schnuck's and Hy-Vee.
And because I'm there to only pick up a few things, I like to use the little carts with the two baskets above one another. I call them the "sports car" carts because they're easy to spin around the aisles than the big "barge" carts that are a pain to maneuver, especially in a crowded store. The only problem is that many people have the same idea I have and the small carts are usually taken. If I were in grocery store management, I'd have a 2 to 1 ratio of small carts versus the larger carts instead of the inverse 3 to 1 ratio they seem to have now. But that's just me.
On this trip to Schnuck's, as I entered the vestibule area I noticed there was only one small cart with the large carts. The only problem was that it was holding a ladies-style purse. I sort of stood there for a moment, looking around the area to see if there was a lady. There was nobody. I looked around outside to see if anyone was near the store front. No one. Hmmm... All right. Now what?
I decided to push the cart inside with the purse still in it. As I got inside the door, I saw a Schnuck's worker - a young 20-something guy who I've noticed in there before, primarily on the early morning shift. I told him, "Hey, I think some lady left her purse in this cart. I didn't see anyone around it."
"Oh, my gosh," he exclaimed. "I'll take it to customer service." Which was a five foot walk from where I was standing.
I went about getting my small list of groceries and as I was going over toward the self-check out area, an older lady came in and I heard her ask someone at customer service if they had her purse. When the lady behind the counter produced it for her, she said, "Oh, my goodness! You don't know what I went through just now!"
When the older lady asked who found the purse, the lady behind the customer service counter pointed toward the young man who was now manning the self-check out command center. By this time, I was starting to scan the items in my cart and the older lady came over to the young man and offered him a reward for finding her purse. I sort of stopped and looked at the kid. She was offering him money - I don't know if it was a 10 or a 20 dollar bill - and to his credit, he kept saying that, no, he couldn't accept her money.
But the older lady wouldn't take "no" for an answer. She forced the bill into the guy's hand, thanking him again for finding her purse, and turned and walked out of the store. The kid didn't even offer up a, "Hey, THIS was the guy who actually found your purse and he turned it into me."
I stood there for a moment, laughed out loud and said to the kid, "Hey, man! You're welcome!"
He didn't acknowledge me and I was standing three feet from him. I just turned around and continued with my self-check out.
Now, I'm sure that I would have turned down money from an old lady who wanted to reward me for finding her purse. (Well... That is, unless she opened up her purse to show me she had $50,000 in it.) I used to get upset with an elderly lady who lived next door to us who would buy me gift certificates to local restaurants for blowing snow off her sidewalk in front of her house. I gave a couple gift certificates away to my wife's son and her father, and I'm looking at two more sitting on my desk.
A manager came over to the kid as I was finishing my purchase at the self-check out and started to berate him for taking money from the old lady. "Never, EVER, take money from a customer, no matter what you did to deserve it," the manager sternly said to the young man. Even after the young guy explained she wouldn't take no for an answer, the manager said, "That doesn't matter. You NEVER take money from a customer!"
As I was walking past the kid who was getting dressed down by the manager for "his" good deed, I just had to chuckle. The kid took responsibility for finding the purse instead of saying, "Well, actually, a customer turned it into me, and I put it in customer service." It wouldn't have mattered to me if I was standing there and he still wouldn't have acknowledged me as being the one who found the purse - as long as he didn't take full credit for finding the purse like he did.
The lady gave him money and he got in trouble for it. I learned a lot of lessons in my 20's (and I'm still learning lessons today) and I'm hoping the kid will think twice in the future when he tries to take full responsibility for something he really didn't do.
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