Efficiency or Patience?

There is a joke that two of the most exacting workers are as follows. For clericals they are the canonists, for layman they are the accountants. Nonetheless, they might in reality be better than us in personal dealings.

We've set fast selling as one of our first articles here. However, through the pandemic of closed stores and dwindling buyers, I have to stare at point blank all day that no one would like to buy from me anymore or do something in the store aside from waiting for customers to come again. By then I forgot to take care of my customers, letting each finger countable ones to become just a disturbance to what I've been doing to past my time instead of waiting for them.

I have to give more of myself to others. By waiting patiently for them to think, looking them in the eye to assess their situation first and their needs, I become more Christlike in giving them the groceries they need, instead of rushing them to already tell me what they need because there might follow another customer. I stop at correcting their wrong wordings of what they want to buy. Instead, I try to guess politely and sometimes never have to tell them their wrong wordings or lack of specification. Sometimes I have to go back and forth thrice showing them items before they speak correctly what they want to buy without me giving them any semblance of impatience. I have to give them too much change and not insist that they paid me only fifty pesos and not one hundred pesos. Instead I try to remember their faces and remind myself that these customers of mine are forgetful and have to tell them next time, "Sir/Ma'am, I have received your fifty pesos" (while showing them the bill) before putting it in the cash drawer and getting their change. Not just for the motive that these will positively impact your store, but ultimately for the motive that you are serving them the way a Christian person should. Even informally we should do these. But when situation needs a personal touch, we might better talk personally to our customers to ease them up, empathies with them, or give them a more correct information that might help them with their personal lives, even though it has nothing to do with what they are buying from you.

You suffered for us Lord Jesus, let us not get idle at doing the little acts we can to better each others' situation. Amen.