All through
high school I wore my signature
Adidas Sambas. Recently, I was unable to find them at the
usual store and was forced to visit a multitude of shoe stores to find my shoes. Upon entering one particular store, I was greeted by a
stunning female employee with a
brilliant smile. To me, it seemed to have more meaning than the previous greetings from other shoe vendors. I don't think of myself as being a very attractive person, so mutual attraction is a feeling I usually don't come across. However, I could not help but to feel the cliched '
chemistry' between us. For the entire time we were together, she was all smiles. When she noticed I wanted to buy another pair of Sambas, she made a few
flirtatious jabs. All in all, she was much more friendly than anyone else I had seen the entire day.
I began to wonder if that was just her personality. Was she overly nice because that was her style, was she normally outgoing? Perhaps she was interested in me, or maybe she was just being paid to be nice.
Being paid to be nice is a concept I am familiar with. When I was being interviewed for a job at Wendy's, they asked me many questions about how I would treat customers. The basic response for any service-oriented industry position is that the customer should be treated with respect. In other words, the employee should be as nice as possible to a customer. Happy customers will come back. With that in mind, when is it appropriate to make advances on an employee.
How is one to tell when an employee of the appropriate gender is nice because they really want to be, or because they are being paid. Suppose the employee is generally interested, what then. What are the next logical steps?
I see only two things wrong with asking out an employee. The first problem is that I wouldn't know much about her. She could already have a boyfriend, be much older or younger than myself, or be a raving lunatic. I just don't know, but there is only one way to find out. The other problem is that I have approached her in her place of work. Suppose her manager was watching her closely and she did something wrong in handling me. I wouldn't want to inadvertently cause her trouble, be lectured on customer service, or in an extreme case, get her fired.