Midwest Memo
Approach
by Alan Shultz

My task at hand was to read the ingredients of the yogurt cup with the bonus granola in the little plastic container on the top. But I didn't have my glasses, didn't know what I was supposed to be looking for in contents anyway, and the spill in aisle 12 was more interesting to observe.

The spill, some kind of nuts from out of a bin, was pretty well confined. This was not a big clean up effort. But the young grocery worker, a tall, thin, teenage girl was intent on making this task last. She swept standing perfectly erect. No bend at the waist, not for this gal. It appeared as though she moved one nut at a time with her broom. She was almost motionless as she went about her task. Her "approach" to her work was to exert the least interest, the minimum effort, the littlest impact on the job at hand.

I had to move on before the young lady reached for her dust pan. The suspense, however, had me in idling in nervous anticipation.

So often, one's approach reflects a wide manner of choice.

I park my car at work in an elevated parking lot that I considered dedicated to the concept of greed. When the lot was designed and conceived the approach taken was to achieve at all costs the most parking spots for the space available. The project could have been approached with an emphasis on safety, or a focus on design. My take is the approach was greed, pure and simple, the most spots for the buck.

The result of the approach taken is a dangerously designed parking lot that will pose needless risk to every person who parks in the structure until the day it is demolished. The ramp to the second floor entrance is narrow and steep. It is a two-way ramp with a blind spot, both coming and going. Its legacy will be many fender benders, angry exchanges and close calls. And the parking spots, each one of them jammed against the other, will author hundreds upon hundreds of nicks as car doors bump, scratch and grind against each other.

The developer's greedy approach to his development will be the cause of many a bad day for unsuspecting folks for years and years to come.

Lately I've been exercising in an old health club nearby. Right now I'm in my treadmill phase. Upon entering the facility, I take a quick visual scan of the place and then beeline it to the first empty machine. I poke at the controls, build up to my stride and then off I go. I find the fully mirrored walls unsettling and so I watch my feet for the next 30 minutes.

My approach to my use of the facilities is...let's call it, standoffish.

Not so for Lenore.

Many years my senior, but one who walks my same pace (I know for sure, I peeked), Lenore enters the club greeting everyone by name. She knows your name, because she's introduced herself previously. "Hi, I'm Lenore, I don't think I know you."

She doesn't "not know" anyone for long.

Lenore wears bright colors, brings a thermos of coffee, and she doesn't look at her shoes when she's tackling the treadmill not for a minute. Instead, she looks at the person to her right and to her left and talks and asks questions and her approach is to interact and to get to know you and it's all pretty delightful.

Lenore's approach to a morning at the gym is "interactive," to say the least.

Like it or not, I guess the lazy grocery gal and I have something in common. We both should be more like Lenore.

That said, I still don't like looking in those goofy mirrors!