I SHOULD LISTEN DURING MY OWN TRAINING
   
Today I went through the McDonald’s drive through for my tea, as I do on most days.  I ordered my tea and pulled forward.  I ended up behind a truck that was taking forever, I mean forever.  I tried to distract the wait with music (as I always recommend) but the person in the truck was talking with the employee, then two other employees poked their head out of the window to shake the driver’s hand.  I was thinking “are we doing business here or serving food”?  Yep, I thought that!  I was becoming very impatient and I kept thinking about all of the things I had to do after I left and here they were, having a conversation in a drive through.
              
Then, as I pulled up to the pay window and started to hand the cashier my $2, she handed me my tea and said “this is taken care of” and I asked by whom and she said “the young gentleman in front of you paid for all of the orders that were placed by everyone who has already ordered in the drive through and that is why it took so long.  Enjoy your day.”
              
It immediately changed the moment for me.  I thought back to my training sessions and how many times I have said “don’t assume, don’t become impatient, don’t get frustrated, enjoy the moment”.  Yeah, all of that was out the window.  Apparently I didn’t listen myself.
              
What I thought was interesting was while I was waiting, I noticed the gentleman in the truck was a young man with a Lindenwood College sticker in his back window and a Veteran license plate.  He chose to give back.  What a great young man.  If you see this sir, thank you, for serving our country.  You are much appreciated.  And thank you for teaching me that I still need to work on being patient!