A few months back, I had a really really bad experience at a restaurant with a waitress that really needed to find other work. So I made huge deal about it. I ended up getting the bill comp’d for me and my brother. So as we were leaving, I was feeling rather proud of myself, my brother says “You think they’ll fire her”. My response – “I hope so, she’s useless.” So my brother stops, and says – “suppose she just found out that she has cancer and is going to die in 6 months.” Of course, I got his point right away, but I still felt the need to argue about whether she would be at work if she had just received that type of news.
Really though, we never know what kind of day a person is having. Some people are fairly good at compartmentalizing their feelings, others are not. In either case, life doesn’t stop. Maybe your waitress found her husband in bed with her best friend when she came back, because left her name tag at home. She has to be at work because now she is trying to figure out how she will support her two kids with the 4.25 p/hr she makes at the restaurant. So given all that is going through her mind – is it really such a big deal that she forgot your extra Ranch dressing? No not really.
My point? Read the title.