Sunday, October 3, 2010

Mr. Smiles

I currently hold a job at a local grocery store. A main goal at the store, as in almost every store, is to pay attention to the customers and to greet each one with a smile. Working is not always fun, and I find it hard to smile at every customer, especially the ones who have a particular way they want their groceries packed, and complain about the smallest things. Somehow I force a smile on my face for everyone.

    There's one guy, though, that whenever I'm working goes through and yells out to all the employees, "Put your smile on!" Of course all of us immediately smile, not at the sense of this old guy telling us to, but at this funny situation that an old guy seems the need to tell us all to do this simple task. We all kind of laugh at him too. We imply in our laughter, "What is this crazy guy doing."

    One time while walking through the store, the same man made a comment to me like, "How are you doing today beautiful?" I was kind of shocked at this as not many people go through stores calling each other beautiful. I didn't really know how to feel. Was this guy just clearly a creep or was he actually trying to be nice. Looking for the best in everyone I came to the conclusion that this elderly man was just being nice and trying to brighten my day. But further on, I realized that smiles and a happy attitude are contagious. For instance, I try not to surround myself with any people who have negative outlooks on life. Why be upset when you are capable of being happy.

    Doing further research into the subject, I found this NPR posting:

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=97848789&m=97848772

So as it turns out, smiles really do spread to others. The more you smile the more the person next to you will smile and the happier the world will be. Smile – it takes less muscles and energy.

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