jane_and.the_dragon

I want to tell you about something that happened many years ago, back when everyone had a vcr but not everyone had a dvd player yet. I had collected about 19 coupons for my favorite type of blank vcr tapes, and took them to a store at the mall to buy some tapes with the coupons. The young man behind the counter may have been new, because there were 2 older staff members standing around watching him and not helping him. I had about 20 tapes to be checked out, and they all had to be checked out separately in sets of 2.
The young man stepped up to the first register to try to check my order out, but it did not work no clue why, then he went to the calculator and it too would not work. Finally he made progress with the second register. He rung up the first pair I handed him a $100 bill and he began the long job of ringing me out. The whole time the other two guys were heckling him, making all kinds of stupid jokes about the order. He held his cool and kept working.
You ever notice how sometimes your eyes will see something that your brain does not register till much later? That happened to me that day. My sister was fretting about it taking so long and the two wanna be comedians on the far side of the counter kept digging at the man checking me out. I was also watching the young man as he patiently sorted all the sets out and checked them out. My eyes saw where he made a mistake but it did not register in my mind till i was half way to the car. On the last two sets he had laid a 50 dollar bill on the side that he was going to use to pay for the last 2 sets, but he accidentally laid my change on top of the 50 he should have put back in the register. I saw it with my eyes when it happened but took my mind a bit to process what I actually saw. I said to my sister we have to go back. She asked why and I told her he had given me too much change and as nice as he was with the other 2 picking at him the whole time I could not leave him stuck for it
When we came back in the store the older heckler said to the helpful young man (YOUR CUSTOMER'S BACK in a sing song taunting style). I said to the young man I think we have a problem here. He said oh we do? I said yea I think you gave me back too much change. They were all surprised at my words. I followed with i think you may have given me back about $20 too much. I handed him the slip and the change he gave me and he started adding it all up again. i WAS RIGHT. While he was working on checking to see if i was right the older man said he wanted to shake my hand so I did. But I also pointed out that there was no way I could have left him stuck for it , because he was so nice and patient with me EVEN WITH HIM AND HIS BUDDY MAKING JOKES THE WHOLE TIME. I said you guys were picking at him , but he never one time snapped at me, and he was a really good person to have as an employee. The 2 hecklers did not say a word to my remark. I hope it made them feel bad that they picked on him.
THE MORAL IS : IF YOU ARE NICE TO PEOPLE MOST WILL BE NICE TO YOU.