Decisions: They Are More Complex Than You Might Think

Not too long ago, an elderly lady walked up to me at work while I was greeting. She told me that she had scheduled a pickup from a bus that stops right in front of the store, and she had written down the time she had scheduled, but she couldn't remember it and her macular degeneration prevented her from reading what she had written. She asked me if she could use a phone to call the company and see what time the bus would come.

This was a very reasonable request, and I did exactly what I would have done if I had run into this lady in the street -- I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and offered it to her. I didn't want to direct her to the other end of the store to use the payphone, I just wanted to help her, and this seemed like the best way.

"Oh, I don't know how to use those." The old lady dismissed my cell phone. No matter.

"Do you know the number?" I asked.

She read the number off, and I dialed it. When the operator came on, I asked about the schedule for the bus that stops right in front of the South Walmart. ("North!" the old lady corrected me. She didn't know where she was.)

"Oh, there isn't a bus that stops in front of the Walmart." The operator told me.

"Oh, I'm sorry, I must have been mistaken." I thanked the operator and hung up, thinking I would get more information from my customer and call back when I had my facts straight. But as I turned back to the old lady, it was as if someone had flipped the bitch switch. She laid into me, ripping me a new one before I could even explain what had happened or ask for more information. I stared at her with openmouthed shock. I was so thrown of balance that I had no idea how to respond. I eventually had to interrupt her tirade to suggest that we simply dial the number again.

"Yes, and let me talk to them this time, if you can't do it." She grumbled. She very politely spoke to the operator and got the information she needed (apparently my mistake had been asking about a bus instead of a scheduled pickup -- the difference is in wording) and gave me back my phone, but I was already shaking with anger. After all, I had pulled out my own phone, using my minutes, to help her. How dare she speak to me that way? Just because I work at Walmart, that doesn't make me any less human. I'm a college-educated member of the Logan community, and yelling at me is not OK. Not even a little bit.

I was angry for the rest of my shift that day. I wanted to get away from the customers. I went home growling about it, and I resolved that above all, I would never, ever, try to help a customer with my own phone again. I would send them down to the payphone no matter how decrepit they were.

Then, a couple of nights ago, a very old man came in from the frigid night. He was dressed in his Sunday best, with a gray suit and dress shoes. He had gotten a cart out in the parking lot and used it to steady himself as he walked inside,but that was his only concession to his age. I glanced at him from time to time as he slowly, carefully made his way toward me.

He said something in a voice so weak and quavering that I had to have him repeat himself three times before I understood he was asking about a phone. From the cold, dead, burned-out place where my heart should have been, I said, "There's a payphone over by the customer service area. It's along this front wall almost to the other door."

Then I helped and greeted other customers while he made his way. His progress was so agonizingly slow that I had plenty of chances to glimpse him. I watched how painfully and carefully he placed his right foot. I had lots and lots of time to ponder the value of compassion, as well as my belief that many of our elderly men are war veterans. In my defense, this fellow spoke so softly that I wouldn't have been able to dial the number for him, and if he couldn't have manipulated the small buttons on my phone we would have been at an impasse anyway. The payphone would have been technology he understood and the buttons would be big enough for him to push. But I wondered how he could possibly make his voice heard over the line, when I couldn't even hear him in person.

In time, I saw him come back my direction. He passed me on his way out, and I asked if he would like to take a scooter to get out to his car. He seemed exhausted from the long walk across our store, and I wondered how he would even get out safely, what with the icy pavement. He shook his head and said something I couldn't make out, in a voice so weak it manifested itself as a helpless wheeze. I wanted to walk him out to his car, and clock out and drive him home and make sure he got up the steps safely. But none of this was possible, and I sensed an air of pride about this old man that told me he didn't want that sort of attention anyway. He passed the scooters at a turtle's pace and pushed his cart out into the night.