Customer service, prescriptions and semis

Published 8:15 am Monday, July 21, 2008

It is a bits and pieces day. Little thoughts of this and that are meandering through my mind. It is hard to focus on one subject when those bits and pieces are out there floating through the day.

Customer service is not dead. Recently I visited the Albert Lea Wal-Mart store to pick up a few odds and ends. My check out person was a young lady by the name of Alyssa or it could have been Aliesha. I wish I had paid more attention to her nametag. It was her first day at work at Wal-Mart. This young lady made my shopping trip a good experience. She was courteous and enthusiastic and friendly. This young lady was excited about her new job and it showed. She made me smile. I hope her enthusiasm continues. I would definitely always try and get in her checkout line because I felt better when I left the store then when I entered because of her attitude.

If you are a customer you know it is not always easy to be polite if we are irritated about something. If you are a person that has contact with customers you know it is not always easy to be polite to customers if we are irritated with them. However, I have to think it is easier dealing with each other if we like our jobs. It was clear that this young lady liked her job. I hope to remember this young lady and carry the lesson she taught me through my days.

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Sambo, my faithful pooch, has allergies. I have allergies. Who would have thought I would have to share my bottle of Benedryl with my dog?

I seem to have a summer cold. I wondered why we call a cold a cold. I couldn’t find much except on Wikipedia. It suggested the reason we call a cold a cold is because it usually attacks during the cold winter. If that is the case then why isn’t my cold that I have this summer called a hot?

If you visit a community check out the alleys. Those alleys tell a story. Sometimes those buildings in the alleys are kind of like us. We put on a good front. Check out those smiling faces. We don’t always see the behind. It may be very different.

I got two prescriptions filled yesterday. I have to work for almost two days full time to pay for those prescriptions. If I do not have those prescriptions I might not be able to work. If I take those prescriptions I have to work for two days to pay for them. Is that confusing?

Today we were all complaining that it was too hot. Weren’t we complaining a couple of weeks ago that it was too cold? It is a little like our relationships, occasionally they blow hot and cold.

My sister-in-law wanted me to write a column about all the blah-colored cars on the road versus the colorful semis. I happened to have a blah color car at the time. My spouse chose the blah vehicle. I noticed that there are many tan, gray, white, black, green vehicles on the road.

In fact the blah-gray vehicle that we had at the time caused many problems for me when I would approach parking lot. There were many vehicles just like mine.

One day in front of a coffee shop in Ankeny, Iowa, I almost got in the wrong vehicle. There were two vehicles parked on Main Street. They were both alike. Luckily I was smart enough to realize the one with the Minnesota license plate was mine! My sister-in-law was right. Semi drivers have great, colorful cabs. I have seen yellow, purple, red, blue, orange and multiple colored semis. It is time we put more color on the road. Why do we buy blah colored vehicles? Do we want to blend into the background and not be noticed? I chose our next vehicle and it is dark green. What does that say for my choices? Of course the other person in my family drew the line at a hot pink van.

I have a friend that gives me advice. I give her advice. The other night she said “Wouldn’t it be nice if we listened to ourselves and took our own advice? We never do that.” So how good is our advice if we don’t listen to ourselves?

This is really a dumb column but my summer hot filled my head with nothing but watery eyes and stuffy nose. So this is what you get when I have a summer hot.

I finished Annie Freeman’s Traveling Funeral. I leave you with this line from the book by Kris Radish: “Go. Do something and do it with gusto and gratitude and with a laugh at the back of your throat, a laugh that never ends.”

Wells resident Julie Seedorf’s column appears every Monday. Send e-mail to her at

thecolumn@bevcomm.net.