Where’s the milk?

You know it.

As you head out the door at your workplace, some unfinished business is in your head.

Remember to write down the unfinished tasks tomorrow, tell your boss your status and send three emails.

The outer door closes, and you are now in your other world. Home to the family, errands on the way, on the way...

Once, it was me who was on my way home. I was starting up an IT company - in authentic start-up style - in a basement, where we had just acquired an extra room, so there was room for one more employee if we moved the servers out in the copy room and had some ventilation installed.

We had just held employment interviews, both with candidates for the job and a couple of candidates for the position of chairman of the board. "This is going to be big! GREATMAN!"

On the way up from the basement, my mindset changed from start-up dude to family man. I had gradually gotten good at crowding out all work as I walked out the door and told myself I did the best I could today.

What I have forgotten today, I can manage to do tomorrow.

Family-father-me got into the car and thought about picking up a daughter from the institution first, but before that, I had to go to a supermarket. What should we have for dinner? Who of the daughters should go swimming tonight?

The sun was shining, even though it was the end of the year. The roads were wet with rain, so due attention had to be paid to the behavior of my crazy oncoming traffic opponents to avoid accidents. I parked the car in the last available stall on the road opposite the supermarket, grabbed the plastic bags I had brought with me in the boot, and had to think of something to put in the bags.

Broccoli! Yes! It had to be able to be used for something. There were chorizo sausages on offer, OK - a dinner course was in its making. Then I had to get tomatoes and...

"Where's the milk?".

It was an elderly lady, clearly visually impaired, who probably thought I worked in the supermarket. I bounced briefly; I was wearing the classic light blue shirt and could look like one from the supermarket.

The lady could have said: "Excuse me. Do you know where the milk is," instead of being rude.

"I don't know, I don't work here," I replied.

Seriously?

All the way home in the car, every day for many days, and to this day, 15 years later, the episode periodically pops up in my conscience. How low is it to act as I did? How small can you be?

How difficult could it have been to point to where the milk was?

There are behavioral experts, psychologists, neuroscientists, and statisticians who can tell you something about the fact that you as a human being cannot have the energy to react appropriately in all situations when things are already "filled up" - but still...

Why don't you always do the right thing in situations where there is no doubt about what is right?

There are enough explanations and excuses.

For me, it was a mixture of being in a hurry (I thought myself), being annoyed by why the lady didn't behave properly (as in my definition of etiquette), and probably most importantly - I wasn't a supermarket employee (aka self-conceived twisted pride).

"Where's the Milk" is one of the episodes in my life that I'm not proud of, but an episode that has made me who I am. I can't change the past, but I can relate to that, and

• Do something about what I can do something about

• Learn from experience and

• Be GREATMAN!

Greetings HH