A friend of mine worked as a teller at a bank (she quit recently), one of the customers came to her window and when she asked him, "Good morning! How can I help you today?", the man *shouted*... "Help? How can YOU 'help' me today? Why is it that in America when someone needs service, they think that the person needing the service is helpless?". The man went on and 'loudly' said, "You should say, *how can I serve you" instead. At that point, my calm-patient friend, kept on with the transaction, which, thankfully, the man had placed on her counter before going on with his speech. At the end of the transaction, she merely said, "Thank you, have a nice day." When the man left, my friend's co-workers approached her to see if she was alright. She said, "Yes, but can you imagine how funny that would sound if I, a woman asked a man *How can I serve you?!*

Clearly, there was a mis-communication there and the man must have been agitated by current events, but he has been a citizen of this country for many years and should have known better. My friend told me that after a couple of weeks passed, the same man returned to her window. My friend then, only said, "Good morning"... the computers were very slow on that day and she apologized for the inconvenience and took care of the paper work while waiting for the computers to come back up. As she was finishing the paper work, thankfully, the computers came back on. The man said, "Thank you, you have been very *helpful* and you handled that problem, which was not your fault, in a very professional way." The man never apologized for his previous outburst.

Socially, we will be able to come to an understanding, providing we keep our beliefs in check.