They've installed self-service checkouts in my local Sainsbury. I was pretty cool about it. I'd quickly got used to them elsewhere and so confidently went straight in as less certain shoppers queued at the attended checkouts. But the "orange sashed" helpers had to hover around me! You could read their minds. "He'll need some help!" Which I didn't! Well not until something totally new (and unnecessary in my view) came up on the display. So there they quickly were ...rescuing the old duffer whilst the attractive woman at the next check-out looked on ...with a condescending smile!
Same sort of thing when buying my tickets from a young bloke at the Odeon last Saturday.
I asked for two tickets ...adding with mock disbelief "....and one of those will be a concession!" "Yes ...don't worry!" he said "I've already taken it off!"
What a liberty. Thinking I was 60 already! Patronising young herbert.
More was to come as I took my small bag of pick-a-mix and joined the queue for the "take in" ...that essential element of the "Fantastic Film" experience!
I couldn't see what was happening ahead of me at the counter. People carrying skip fulls of popcorn and buckets of cola (clearly frequent customers) blocked my view.
So when a baseball-capped youth suddenly appeared I perhaps did hesitate for a second before proffering my modest purchase.
"Put it there" he said with disdain. "Where?" "There!" He impatiently pointed to the weighing plate. "£3.35!!" No please or thank you! I wandered off nostalgically recalling evening-suited cinema managers and usherettes with ice-cream trays.
But on reflection I wonder how much of all those experiences was fantasy and over active imagination ...as opposed to reality. Yes of course we jump to conclusions. It's the way the mind works. Understanding begins by making a generalised association with preconceived thought. Very often thought that has been influenced by external opinion! Then we learn a bit more and we deal with things according to how we experience them and how they sit with our values system.
Which is how we need to treat the issue of ageism in employment. Pre-conception ...prejudice are natural and inevitable generalised reactions. They have very little lasting meaning or importance.
And we should deal with them as just that!
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