Acts with and towards strangers speak volumes.

I ducked out this afternoon and went to a nearby "superette" (a compact urban supermarket) with two registers, only one of which was operating. It was mid-afternoon, and there were few customers at the shop. I picked up some drinks to stock my refrigerator and took my place behind a shopper, a middle-aged woman with a small cartfull of groceries.

A harried woman came up, a prepackaged sandwich in hand. Clearly, her lunch hour had come and gone without lunch, and she was trying to make up during a coffee break. She asked whether she could cut ahead of me in line. This was fine with me. The woman ahead of me, however, acted as if she were offended: "I really don't have the time. I'm in a hurry." The cashier seemed ready to oblige the sandwich buyer, but the other shopper held her ground: "I'm really pressed for time."

The sandwich shopper, discouraged, started back to the sandwich cooler, I assume to replace her sandwich. Suddenly, a second cashier appeared and said she could ring up the sandwich: price €1.11, transaction time under ten seconds.

Another shopper, who'd arrived in the meantime behind me, started to dash for the second register. The cashier helpfully (to me) cut her short, saying in my direction "Monsieur ?" She rang up my four bottles, at a per unit price of €1.54. The total came to €7.00. I asked wither she could check the price. The impatient shopper behind me exclaimed, to no one in particular, "The price is seven euros!". But the cashier saw that the price per bottle really was €1.54 and that I had four identical bottles, so the total really was less than €7.00, a mere €6.16.

I can live with petty discourtesies and harried shoppers. But my thoughts go out to those, like these cashiers, who must endure berating treatment from customers every day. I'm hard-headed, but soft-hearted.