a fine balance

Being a shop assistant/market trader type person is such a fine balance, isn't it? Sometimes you have chosen something - shoes perhaps - and the assistant is too bothered by their own carefully-studied pose of nonchalance to either not notice you requiring or requesting service, or you have a persistant shadow whose queries as to your needs get in the way of you actually browsing and selecting something. (Actually, Oxfam is a big culprit, for neither of those exact examples, but I loathe the fact that when you head upstairs to potter through the academic books, someone on the staff instantly follows you and pretends to sit in the sofa reading whilst you know full well they're checking you don't slip something costing 99p into your bag. This irritates me muchly - if I was inclined to do so, I doubt I'd be in Oxfam in the first place - I'd much rather open my bag to inspection on leaving and be left to browse at leisure; half the fun is browsing, and picking up things rather randomly). I'm afraid that this afternoon someone lost my business from appearing at my elbow just too keen on said business, which would have been the princely sum of erm, two times £2.99, and which I ended up paying more for something I liked less elsewhere. I don't know why this occasionally annoys me, and I'm almost more annoyed with myself for deciding against the purchase. On return home, I've been curled up with +John Pritchard's new book and reading about the dual worlds inhabited that he illustrates, talking of liminal spaces. It's quite a liminal place to be being a shop assistant, I think. Encouraging the buyer without frightening them off, gaining their trust without pushing them away; recognising who needs that extra support, when to step forward, when to step back. A lesson for me to learn.