Jo's Cafe

When I was working in retail in high school / college, I was floored by the complete lack of basic reasoning ability and common sense that some customers showed.  As an example, often customers would walk to Customer Service from the Main Checkout area and ask where Main Checkout was — despite the huge sign that hung over the registers, the cash registers themselves, etc.  An even better example?  People who would walk INTO the store and then ask if we were open….or who found the door locked when they arrived but continued trying to get in rather than check the store hours.

At some point I started joking that there had to be a magnetic field around the store entrance that shut off people’s brains as they walked in. After all, no one could be that dense and get through life.

Ah, memories of when I was young and naive….

Just yesterday I had one personal experience, heard a story from my sister, and read a blog posting about people who left their reasoning power at home….or had it wiped out by that imaginary magnetic field I dreamed up as a teenager.

People….before you ask for help, before you sign a piece of paper, before you do most anything with consequences — STOP, take a breath and put your reasoning power and common sense to work. You don’t have to be a genius to do this. You just have to stop and think a little…maybe ask the basic Who/What/When/Where/Why/How questions.

Someone is asking you to sign something? You aren’t sure what it means? ASK! Too embarassed to ask? REFUSE TO SIGN!

Got a problem you can’t work out? Figure you need help from someone else? Okay, before you do that, ask yourself — WHAT is the problem? WHERE/WHEN/HOW did it happen? WHAT have you already done to try and figure it out?

If we all took a little more responsibility for ourselves, this world would be a better place.