At work one day.

At work one day- the reference desk of a public library- I had two people approach me. One was a small middle-aged woman, rather homely and unsophisticated, and the other was her very large son, tall and overweight, with long hair, dressed all in black, looking somewhat intimidating at first glance.

I asked them how I could help them, making sure to have eye contact with both. They needed help finding some magazine articles on a particular subject for a school project. I showed the son how to look up articles on an electronic database on an Internet terminal in the library, which took a few minutes of explanation. He turned out to be a quick learner. I returned to the info desk. As he worked on the PC in the computer room, his mother came back up to me.

"Can I help you with something else?"

"No, I just wanted to say thank you very much for treating my son like a person. I really appreciate that."

I could see that she was sincere. I'm not sure what I replied.

All of the times that I had hid my frustration with slow or rude customers was swept away for one afternoon.