Christian Experience at Trader Joe’s

Mar 13, 2009 by Fr Luke Palumbis

Observing human nature and interaction is both amazing and interesting.  While at Trader Joe’s i Stockton, CA a few weeks ago, I watched as an employee went from customer to customer, in the vegetable section of the store.  With a smile on his face, and a true sense of genuine concern, asked each customer if there was anything he could help them find, or any questions he may try to answer.  After a few minutes, I found myself in need of some assistance while searching for pepper, I saw the same young man, and asked him if he could help me.  Instantly, he left what he was doing, and took to directly to the pepper—again with a smile on his face…not the type of smile that is forced and exists in Stepford, but one that was genuine!

Two nights ago I returned to Trader Joe’s for a few essentials on my way home from the church.  As I waited in the check out line, the same young man was working behind the register.  The two women in front of me were consumed with their selection of wine as they swiped a credit card, and young man behind the register asked them, “How are you this evening?”  ...again, with the same sense of genuine concern as I had witnessed a few weeks earlier.  Asking someone ‘how are you,’ in our culture has become simply a greeting, and no longer a question, so when the women saw his saying now offered as a genuine question, they were taken back a bot, and, “oh, you know…not so great.  How are you?”  The young man replied, “I am great!  You know it’s a choice…if you want to be great, it is simply a choice.”  Perplexed, the woman with the credit card responded cynically, “I don’t know about that, have you seen what’s going on these days?”  “It’s all a choice,” he replied, “Some bad things might happen to you, but there is always hope that they get better, and the fact that we have that hope let’s us choose to how our day goes.”  The woman received her wine, and went about her day.

I was next, and he looked at me, asking, “Isn’t that right?”  I told him, “Brother, you are 100% right, and God bless you!”

Thank you to this young man at Trader Joe’s, your Christian pilgrimage inspired me through a witness of hope ...a witness of Jesus Christ!