I was waiting in line for checking out at the restaurant tonight. Twowhite ladies (lady A and lady B) were right in front of me. They stoodthere for a while. Then Lady B told Lady A that she forgot to eat herfavorite desert. It was a buffet place. So she went inside again.
Aftera minute, lady A turned to me. I smiled to her. She started talking tome, "They certainly need a faster person at Friday night."
Ilooked over to the cashier. She was a young girl, probably a highschool student. I never saw her in this restaurant before. I then spoketo Lady A, "She might be a novice. Not too familiar with the job yet.""Maybe, but at Friday night..." She still looked not satisfied. I guessI was not in a hurry. I was ok with the speed. At the same time, I toldmyself that everybody has to passed the time when they are novice tosomething.
After some minutes past, the cashier girl stillwasn't finishing with that one check out yet. That check out was for a3-4 young Chinese men group. I couldn't see what was going on beforethe cashier. Without turning my head to her, I made the comment to LadyA, "It is still not done yet."
"Oh, they are probablyusing cards." When I heard this sentence, I realized the sound was notof Lady A's. So I turned over. It was Lady B standing in front of meagain, holding a piece of white desert cookie with cream on top of it.She must have thought that I was talking to her. What was interestingwas her following comment:
"Oh, they are probably IntelEngineers!" The way she said it was quite peculiar, as she looked tothose Chinese young men. I realized that her interest was not in thecashier girl as she wasn't waiting for long and was enjoying herdesert. But somehow those yong men caught her attention.
"How do you know they are from Intel?" I was interested.
"Itis on their shirts." She then pointed to her upper left chest with herother hand that was not holding the cookie, nodding to the directionsof those "engineers".
"They are very difficult to deal with." She continued.
"Are you or were you at Intel?" I asked.
"No, I only had some contacts with Intel engineers from work." She said.
"Theyare so precise. Things have to be exact the way they want it, step bystep. It seems everything only has one way!" Her face was quiteexpressive as she talked.
"I know, that is part of their professional training." I said, as I kept smiling to her.
In my mind, a couple of things had passed already as we were talking.
First,it was quite obvious that she is not an engineer. She doesn't work withnumbers and instruments everyday. She must be dealing with people mostof the time. Secondly, she probably does not deal with engineers often.The rare chances that she worked with engineers did not leave her goodimpressions.
I wanted to say thatengineers may be better than mathematicians, as far as 'being preciseor sticking to one way' goes. But that would be too involvedconversation. I am an engineer too. But of course I wouldn't tell herthat either.
I understood herquite well now how difficult a person could be if he/she could not bendon things, insisting that there is only one way to the solution, andthat solution is his/hers. I don't know how long ago I was just likethat. So in my mind, I smiled to myself, how nice I have changed andpassed that stage!
At that moment, the casher girl finished herwork of those "engineers", and with Lady A and Lady B. I handed her mycredit card, signed on the bill and left the restaurant. A sense ofcheerfulness surfaced from the bottom of my heart. It will be anotherpleasant evening...
