I was picking up some groceries at the market today and something funny happened.

One of the things I always say to the checkout people when they ask you if you want paper or plastic, I always tell them, “No, no paper, no plastic. I’m just going to carry everything out in my hands.”
I like to see if they’re paying attention.

So today, the checkout woman didn’t ask me if I wanted paper or plastic. She asked, “Is plastic okay?” I replied that plastic is fine.
She goes, “Would you like any utensils with your food?”

I said, “No, I’m just going to eat it all in the car on the way home.” She was on such autopilot that what I said didn’t even register with her. I looked at her and said, “I’m only kidding, you know?”

She looked at me, raised an eyebrow, and goes, “I got it.”

What’s really funny about people, especially people at registers like the check-out person at the grocery store, is they’re always on autopilot. They’re constantly going,

“Paper or plastic? Would you like any utensils? Debit or credit?”

It’s like they don’t even acknowledge that a real person is in front of them. They’re just so caught up in work mode, automatic mind set mode, whatever they’re doing just to get through their day.

So a really great exercise for you guys to do is to snap people out of that automatic mode. Snap them out of the boring routine of the day and get them to interact with a real person. Snap them out of that moment with a joke and then smile and laugh.

What happens is you’ll get other people around you to start talking to you too. This woman laughed and started talking to me right as I was paying and said, “God, I thought you really were going to eat it all on the way home!”

She played in on the whole joke and we had a fun laugh together.

These are all great opportunities for you guys to really go and transition into other conversations, plus you get to snap people out of their boring, monotonous daytime routines and actually give them some fun and engaging conversation, as well.