A bittersweet moment
Treating people with respect should not be a remarkable moment
By Jim LaJoie
Recently my wife and I went to lunch to mark the anniversary of our first date, going to a restaurant that is one of a small rotation of places we go to occasionally.
After being seated, we were greeted by a friendly young woman who introduced herself as Jayla, said she would be serving us, and asked if we were celebrating anything special. My wife told her of our first-date anniversary. Jayla congratulated us, asked how many years we had known each other, and after my wife answered, took our drink orders and left to wait on other tables.
A bit of background: one thing I have learned from my wife (among many), is a common courtesy that can be extended to those who serve you in any capacity is to acknowledge their first name. If done sincerely, and out of respect for a fellow human being, and not done in a performative way, this simple act is a minimum standard of decency.
Jayla came back a few minutes later with our drinks and my wife and I both thanked her, using her name when doing so. She then took our orders and scrambled off to the other tables under her watch. She returned a respectable amount of time later with our food and we, again, thanked her using her first name. She periodically came over to see if we wanted anything else. At one of her visits to us, she mentioned she was in nursing school. My wife, a retired nurse, talked briefly with Jayla about nursing as a career. Jayla then went back about her business.
At the end of our meal, Jayla came over and asked us if we wanted anything else, which we didn’t. Jayla paused and told us she was touched we had used her first name in our interactions with her, implying that not many did. She said she was also grateful we had taken an interest in her as a person. She seemed sincerely touched by what my wife and I took as nothing more than a basic courtesy: treating her respectfully.
Jayla came back a few minutes later with not only the check, but two small pieces of cheesecake - which we hadn’t ordered - and a small card with handwritten notes from her and some of her colleagues congratulating us on the anniversary. It was a touching moment for my wife and I.
On the way home I told my wife that although this interaction was a positive one, I couldn’t help but feel a bit saddened by it. That came from knowing that merely treating this nice young woman with respect was so unique to her that it had left an impression. The implication being that others, likely most, had treated her as a non-entity, tasked with servitude, nothing more, left me with a distasteful feeling.
What my wife and I did hardly was exemplary behavior, there was (or should have been) nothing exceptional about it. All we did was exhibit a very basic act of respect, an act apparently that was foreign to this woman’s experience in her service role.
It was a bittersweet moment. It should have been an unremarkable one.
About the author: Jim LaJoie makes his home in North Carolina. He strives to treat everyone with respect.
Thanks for the reminder that simply being nice to others should be seen as the norm, not a chore.