Aging worker slow on the job: what would you do?

Last weekend, I was flipping channels and happened to catch a show on ABC called "What Would You Do?" The premise of the show is to create situations and see how people respond to them.

In the segment I watched, the show put a 78-year-old female actor behind a cash register at a small gourmet grocery store. They gave her a crash course in using the register and then left her to handle the customers. What she didn't know was that behind the scenes, they were having one of the store managers interfere with the register so it wouldn't ring items up correctly.

As the woman struggled to get the machine to respond, the line of customers grew longer. Another actor placed by the show stood in line making ageist comments, such as "This lady should be in a nursing home," and telling another customer, "You might want to pick another line; we've got Grandma over here."

The reaction of other customers in line ranged from quiet disgust -- a mother and her daughter looked at the rude "customer" with disgust and got out of line; to subtle admonition when one lady said to the heckler "That's not nice;" to outright anger, displayed when a gentleman told the customer mouthing off that he was "obnoxious beyond belief" and that "the poor woman's just trying to survive."

There were a few other scenarios -- older male cashier, rude soccer mom -- though it didn't seem to matter the gender of the cashier or the gender or age of the frustrated shopper. Each time, other customers came to the defense of the struggling, older worker.

(You can watch the segment here.)

The show made me think about what I would do. I know for certain that I would not be saying rude and belligerent things about the cashier or his/her age. I might remark that "I always pick the wrong line," because I do. I probably would roll my eyes -- more than once.

But would I come to the defense of the cashier? Would I call out someone who was behaving so badly toward another? If that someone were a child, I definitely would. I don't have any problem doing that. But what if that someone were an adult?

Hmmm...I'd like to think the answer would be yes. And now that I've seen this segment of "What Would You Do," the answer is more likely yes. But before? I would have told my children that the rude behavior was not appropriate. But would I have said the same to the offender? I honestly don't know.

What would you do?


Amy Magan
Communications Manager