Sense of Decency

By JIM McKEEVER

I’ve long been a practitioner of “thin-slicing,” making assessments of a person within the first few minutes of an encounter. Author Malcolm Gladwell popularized the term in his 2005 book, “Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking.”

I immediately go through my mental checklist of the person’s politics, values, income level, their attitude toward me and how they likely treat other people in their lives. 

As a dear friend of mine used to say, I’m often wrong but never in doubt.

I should know better, especially because of my monthly grocery-shopping excursions with my friend James.

James is 57 and lived on the streets for a large part of his adult life. For years he slept in a doorway of a vacant building in downtown Syracuse, across from the state office building. Then, when James turned 50, a group of community members and advocates pulled out all the stops to find him a subsidized apartment, where he’s been ever since.

Once a month I take James grocery shopping. Occasionally we go to a home improvement store because he is meticulous about keeping his floor clean and wants a particular style of mop.

You wouldn’t think that if you’re a thin-slicer.

James lets his hair and beard grow freely.

He has put on quite a bit of weight since he’s been housed these last seven-plus years. He jokes about his added pounds, but is self-conscious about it. He favors a heavy Carhartt jacket and torn blue jeans, even on hot summer days.

James cuts quite an imposing figure, but he is one of the kindest and most polite people I know. He constantly greets and thanks cashiers and other store employees everywhere we go, and always leaves them with “God bless you.”

Sometimes he’ll catch another customer off guard with an abrupt question about the location of a product. Or a parent of a young child will be taken aback by his appearance — as happened recently when he greeted a small child sitting in a shopping cart with, “Hello, little one.”

I try to stick close to James in the stores, simply because I am wary of someone overreacting to his deep voice or a blunt question and creating a scene that could escalate. 

But in the five years or so we’ve gone shopping together, we’ve only had one negative encounter with another shopper. A man wearing a “camo” jacket — you can believe I thin-sliced that dude — didn’t like how much time James was taking to put some items into his cart. 

The man didn’t say anything rude, but he was clearly annoyed by having to wait to get his allotment of Chef Boyardee. His body language included angrily tossing several cans of pasta into his cart after James relinquished his spot in the aisle, then storming off toward the checkout lines. 

I guess James’ unkempt appearance, and my presence next to him, didn’t clue him in that James was making sure he had enough food to last the month. 

Our most recent shopping trip included a side trip to a home improvement store. (Yes, James needed a new mop). 

I avoid patronizing this chain because too often I see stereotypes come true — large pickup trucks with Trump bumper stickers in the parking lot. Aren’t all these home improvement stores MAGA magnets?

We quickly found the right mop and headed to the registers, which of course are mostly “self-checkout” lanes that annoy me no end. (But why are drive-up ATMs OK?)

Like most businesses with self-checkout, this store had employees in the area ready to assist customers who need help using the system. 

To my surprise, the employees on duty that day were two women wearing hijabs and the company’s aprons over their flowing garments. The younger of the two, who couldn’t have been more than 16, helped James with the mop purchase and was as pleasant as could be.

Ever since that encounter, I’ve been wondering how certain types of customers treat those women in their hijabs — and acknowledging that my bias against national home improvement chains and their “typical” customers may be unfair.

I’m often wrong, but maybe sometimes I should be in doubt.

Jim McKeever is a co-founder of Sense of Decency.