Random Acts of Kindnes - Cookies!

As mentioned in a previous post, I’ve endured a pretty rough series of weeks . Towards the end of the worst of the 3, I received an email from a colleague named Claudia requesting assistance. Though I was juggling multiple tasks and was already several hours past due to head home, I took the time to address the problem as I recognized a hint of desperation in her email. The effort required was minimal and it didn’t take long to find a solution so I was pleasantly surprised to receive a glowing response of gratitude a few minutes later. Claudia wanted to know if there was a manager to whom she could send an email of praise which I declined simply because the thank-you was already so considerate and such a rare treat in my line of work that it more than sufficed.

Imagine my surprise on receiving a bouquet of cookies delivered to my office the following week!  The gift was such a fantastic surprise that I felt I had to note the example here because there’s a great lesson in this experience – helping somebody or performing a kind act may not always seem like that big a deal to you, but it may mean far more to the recipient than you could ever imagine. The work I did for Claudia wasn’t terribly taxing as I have over a decade of experience with precisely the problem to which she needed a solution. But to Claudia, the results apparently meant far more than I would have expected. The recipient of your help/ effort/ kindness may often see things in a totally different light.

Claudia reinforces what I keep repeating here – there are great people out there waiting both to receive and respond with kindness. Her gift of kindness for what I thought of as a relatively minor effort has served to energize me and keep me focused on the job ahead. Thank you, Claudia, for the wonderful gift, for your kindness, and for proving my point that there really is such a thing as karma!