For a year, I was employed part time for HomeGoods in addition to my full time job. Why? For the money, the distraction, and because I grew extremely fond of the people with whom I worked. During a seven day week, I put in about 20 hours. Spending this much time at the store introduced me to tons of people and the experience was heady. I never met so many interesting individuals gathered in one place: married, single, younger, older, poor, well-off, sick, healthy, educated, trying-to-get educated, shy, exhibitionist. They had so many stories to tell and I had so much time to listen while we categorized a thousand and one throw pillows by color. Culturally, at the time, kindness was trending. So I decided early on to make this job an experiment in kindness. Could I be kind to every person I encountered: managers, teammates, customers? If I did, how would I measure success? Would this be an experiment everyone could do? The answer came quickly and blew my mind. Here is what you can do and what I did:
For Your Managers: Show up on time and do what they ask you to do. I checked out resources, like the merchandising handbook, on my breaks and studied them. I let them know I used some of my vacation time from my full time job to support the store during holiday seasons. I adopted an “it’s easier to be forgiven than approved” attitude. Like Philip McKernan says, “In the absence of clarity, take action.” In order to learn, I offered to do things (returns, merchandising, etc) beyond my job description until someone higher up than me told me I didn’t have the authority to do it.
For Your Teammates: Listen to them and ask follow up questions. Do the tasks others don’t want to do – within reason. For example: I didn’t judge and I pretended not to be shocked by anything they said. (“Are your decisions getting you what you want out of life? L’chaim.”) When a chronically complaining coworker started up, I spun her complaint into a compliment. When a high maintenance customer overwhelmed a new associate, I offered assistance. When an associate felt stuck in her position and wanted to move up, we discussed resume writing and networking. When an associate was grappling with another job opportunity, we talked about the pros and cons of retail life vs. office life. I set boundaries like time limits for listening and offering a choice to unmotivated teammates: “Here are two things we need to do right now. Which one do you want? I’ll do the one you don’t want to do.” (Please excuse the overuse of “I” in this post. I couldn’t think of another way to give real-life illustrations.) Bottom line: Treat others the way you want to be treated.
For Your Customers: They are always more important than the task. Take the time to serve them. Here are some things that happened to me: A grumpy older man wanted to use a dolly (which is forbidden by the company) to haul a Christmas mailbox from the back of the store to the front. I offered to do it. When he said, “Are you going to pay for it when you drop it?” I said, “Sir, your confidence in me is underwhelming,” and hauled the mailbox. Sassy? Yes. Disrespectful? Not quite. Another customer pulled out a dozen throw pillows, trying to decide which three to purchase. I put them in a cart and took them over to a couch the color she was trying to match and we spent twenty minutes choosing the perfect ones. Another customer asked for help finding sheets and every option I pulled for her either was not the right thread count, or not the right size, or did not include enough pillow cases, or was too expensive, etc. I did not kill her.
I had to give up HomeGoods when my full time job began to require more flexibility in my schedule. The results of the kindness experiment have stuck with me and, I think, made me better at my full time job. The first result was a realization that my age is finally coming in handy. I was used to being the youngest person in the group. But at the store, I was one of the oldest. I was depressed at first, but tried to roll with it. I mean, what’s the alternative? Death? The second result was that the challenge of finding ways to be kind to everyone I came in contact with at the store energized me. I found I could work 60 or so hours a week and still function. The final result was the most unexpected. Two months into my employment, it was time to choose the Associate of the Quarter. The majority of my teammates voted for me. Their kindness flatters me even now. I received my name on a plaque, a framed certificate, a visit from the district manager, and a gift card. But the real gift they gave me was practice communicating with customers, teammates, and management. Kindness as a communication strategy. Brilliant. Thank you teammates for the valuable lesson!
How about you? Ever find yourself in a situation where you can choose to either invest in people or just keep to yourself? What did you do? Are you happy with your decision? Tell me about it here: