Urban Grind

Today I was reminded of a few things. What goes around comes around. It is safe to trust people. And you can never judge a book buy it’s cover.

Took my son down to the local hardware today to get a few small things and upon reaching the counter I turned to Oscar, my son and exclaimed “Oh no I forgot my wallet!”. Instantly the guy in front of us said don’t worry I will pay for it. I didn’t hesitate and said thanks because the best advice ever given to me was to “Never deny someone the opportunity to give.” – Nigel Reed. David, the generous man in line told me how he had once filled his car with petrol, then at the counter realised he had no money only to be surprised by a women willing to pay the whole bill. He said that he is now always on the look out to keep paying such a kind act forward. It reminded me that when you do a good thing for a person or a bad thing against a person it gets multiplied which is why you should do good things. A random act of kindness really wakes something up in people I think and it will be a feeling they will want others to experience. If you have never seen the movie Pay it Forward I highly recommend it.

Earlier in the day I had another wonderful encounter with a customer that had returned to pay her bill after what must have been at least six weeks. I have a personal policy of trusting that if people don’t have the cash on them or they only have card I trust them and ask them to simply fix us up when it is next convenient for them. So far everyone has returned as far as I know as I don’t keep a record each time and I usually forget moments later that this person still ‘owes’ us. It’s a nice place to be in cause it kind of means for me that I get to live in a world where everyone is trust worthy and my personal theory goes that you can’t trust people if you never give them the opportunity to be trustworthy. I know some have abused this but that’s ok cause the percentage is so low that I could probably only name one person in nearly 8 years of Urban Grind. Anyway… six weeks ago I declared to my awesome (just as her she will tell you herself) assistant that this particular women has obviously scammed us and is never coming back. But such is life yadda yadda. She had been so vague the first time that she came into the shop and we just couldn’t work her out and I guess the experience made us wonder a bit as to what was going on and we started to get sus. Then she came up to pay and only had card, no cash and while I said sure just fix us up later I honestly thought that she was never coming back. I didn’t trust her. Today she walks in and I pretend I don’t remember her, but I do and she asks for a coffee and would like to fix up her bill from last time she was in Brisbane. How is that the first time I am so sure I couldn’t trust someone I am wrong. So I get talking to her cause now she’s cool you know, I trust her and I can treat her like everyone else (I just called myself a tosser so you don’t need to) and she mentions that she doesn’t come into the cities much or something like that and now I am getting the sense that maybe her being a bit vague was actually her way of just finding her way around slowly. She has actually been so patient the first time that she waited like 20 minutes for the line to die down before ordering. Maybe I can go easy on myself for thinking that is strange as so many people these days are impatient and pressed for time.

This is not the first time that I have found that it only takes about a maximum of 2 questions to start to get to know someone. If you think you know someone on sight, inquire, you will be so wrong unless you are gifted. I once thought one of my customers once was an obvious bum until I asked he once what he does and it turns out he was a retired physics professor in a field that I had never heard of and these days he just likes to tent to his garden. Speak to people, they have stories that will out do your assumptions.