Be polite to the shop assistant

please. The person ahead of me in the supermarket was on her phone. The call was obviously to a friend. They were discussing a wedding both had been to and dissecting the clothing of some of those who had attended. 

I could ignore that at any time but I found it much more difficult to ignore two other things. The first was that her precious child was making very rude faces at the shop assistant and the second was that she was also ignoring the shop assistant completely. She dumped her items and her bags and simply went on talking. The shop assistant scanned them, packed the bags and returned everything to the trolley. The woman tapped her watch to pay the amount and simply walked off without even looking at the shop assistant. Her child simply ran ahead almost knocking over an elderly man.

It is one of the worst examples of how not to behave in a supermarket and it is not the first time I have come across something like that. It worries me.

I usually shop in the same supermarket. It is owned by a family, not a chain. If I shop there on Thursdays I get a small "senior's discount" which means the prices are about the same as elsewhere. It has the added advantage of being particularly well laid out and well lit, the green grocery section is good (but not as good as my favoured green grocery) and they stock local products where they can. It also has one other enormous advantage. The staff in there tend to be helpful and friendly. 

I know quite a lot of them by name. Some of them are part of the student cohort who only work a few hours a week but others are full time employees. If they see me outside the supermarket they know me well enough to acknowledge me. It is nice, especially when I have had to go in still feeling wet, cold and miserable because of the trauma Middle Cat, Brother Cat and I endured last week.

"You okay Cat?" the girl who had just been ignored asked me. I managed to smile and nod but I had to blink hard. Here was someone who had just been ignored in the rudest possible way asking me if I was okay. I swallowed hard and asked her how her father was instead. He has been in hospital. Her face lit up and said, "He came home yesterday and he's already driving Mum crazy."

That made me feel so much better but I pedalled off a little later thinking that it is a tough job to stand there scanning groceries for people who cannot even be bothered to look at you. Is it really that hard to do? Wouldn't it be polite to say "thank you"?