I’m going to mix things up a bit this week.Those of you looking forward to my usual Google-idolizing, Apple-bashing, video-game-loving column, I’m sorry to say you’re out of luck.I want to touch on something a bit more personal this week.Take a moment to remember the last place you went out to eat or the last store where you went shopping. Think about your experience — the encounters you had with the waiter or the sales associate. Was it a good one? How did they treat you? How did you treat them?It’s safe to say everyone reading this column has gone out to eat at a restaurant or has shopped at some type of retail store.Every time a patron visits one of these places, some sort of relationship is established between the customer and the employee. Sometimes it’s a pleasant relationship — the customer leaves happily smiling, and the employee knows he did a good job.Other times, a disgruntled customer will irately inform the employee of his feelings — even if said employee had nothing to do with the customer’s rage — as he storms out of the establishment.But on the other end of the unhappy patron stands the employee who either caused the customer’s temper to flare or was simply at the wrong place at the wrong time.I’ve been an employee at the electronic retail giant Best Buy for the last year. I’ve encountered many different types of people and personalities through this job. I’ve also gained knowledge on many different types of electronics with which I was otherwise unfamiliar.But there’s one thing I’ve acquired from my year at Best Buy I could only have learned by wearing the blue shirt — a whole new meaning of the word “patience.”This patience was found at first only when dealing with the large number of customers that enter the store each day. All people are different, which sometimes means swallowing your pride in the name of the business motto “the customer is always right” — even when they’re clearly not.There are also some people out there who like to lose their cool every chance they get. This new level of patience takes over as I stand there in my blue shirt getting screamed at because it’s solely my fault the store is out of Nintendo Wiis two days before Christmas, and I’ve forever ruined Little Johnny’s Christmas.But this patience seemed to evolve outside of the workplace as well. I realized I now find myself more patient with the work staff as I shop somewhere or go out to eat because I know what it’s like to be on the other end of the “customer experience.”I don’t get frustrated as quickly as I used to because I know the employee is doing his or her best to help me.Of course, there are always exceptions. I’ve gone places where the people working clearly don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves. That’s why I refuse to shop at certain places.But this isn’t the case at most establishments. The workers are truly doing everything they can to help their customers.As corny as the “walk a mile in someone else’s shoes” cliché is, it’s true. If all people had to work at a retail store at one point in their life or be a waiter at a restaurant, they would understand what it’s like to be on the other end of these encounters experienced in everyday life.People could learn this same level of patience I’ve acquired wearing my blue shirt for a year.But the day that actually happens, there will be world peace, pigs will fly and “Jersey Shore” will never plague my television again.Adam Arinder is a 20-year-old communication studies junior from Baton Rouge. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_aarinder.____Contact Adam Arinder at [email protected]