damn, mary. who knew this was something i needed to read, on the eve of thanksgiving, no less. it's been hard to wrap my head around the casual selfish cruelty this election revealed about so many among us; reading about these instances of kindness was a necessary reminder that there is another side. and i'd forgotten how much i love that four tops song. your entire last paragraph of this post really hit home. thank you.
I am so grateful to have managed to say Thank You to some of the people who looked after the hapless and clueless me in my late-teens and early-twenties -- *something* good must come from the internet and the ability it has granted us to track people down. But most of my benefactors are lost to me -- for instance the police officer who, after having caught me red-handed shoplifting at the 7-Eleven (the one time I ever stole anything besides food), and -- after I had stupidly and transparently lied to try to escape -- delivered a come-to-Jesus admonition that laid it on not a millimeter too thick, and then told me he hoped I had learned something and that he was going to send me on my way -- "It's a judgment call -- you seem like a good kid" he told me when I asked him, baffled, "why?" I have tried to "pay forward" some of this kindness and forbearance, though I am sure I am still in arrears. What your stories really drive home to me, though, is how entwined and interconnected we are. Who can tell me what parts of of what I have learned or loved from reading your sentences have come indirectly from these encounters and your reflections on them? And the fact that these people were able to rise to the occasion themselves also did not spring out of nothing -- whence did that woman's generosity arise, or that of the kind driver who picked you up hitchhiking? I sometimes think that every kindness I manage to do is not mine but only passing through me. I don't think this notion erases my initiative or my responsibility; but it gives me another occasion for gratitude. As does, it is fitting to say, this post. Thank you.
(Edit added later): Wanted too to say that the essay by Nabokov is one of my favorites by him, and I feel keenly the dilemma you sketch of how to say fitting or artful or moving things at a time when so much power is bent upon either turning the world into slag or making sure that we see only -- and perhaps turn into -- the moral equivalent of such slag. Keep the faith.
I often hitchhiked in my vulnerable young days when I had no car. Coming back from Mexico penniless I ran out of money in Brownsville Texas and started hitchhiking, heading back to Aspen, Colo. where I’d been fired from my job.
A college age guy in a fraternity t shirt picked me up, didn’t talk much, and then offered me a motel room for the night if I would “turn tricks,“ for him and his friends. I thought to myself, don’t you have a sister, don’t you have a mother?
He let me out soon after I refused, actually just shook my head. And then a couple whom I’d met on the train to Brownsville, saw me there and picked me up. They were worried for me. They took me to a station and bought me a bus ticket to Denver, and essentially suggested I pay it forward. I then hitched in the snow in my hippie Mexico dress from Denver to Aspen.
Another married couple picked me up and afterwards the man, the husband, wrote me a dear kind letter and offered to buy me whatever books I would like to have. Like a father. I didn’t respond.
But many many years later, I did have the opportunity to pick up another single female hitchhiking, in the rain, just over the Golden Gate Bridge in a fairly dangerous spot. I couldn’t take her very far, but I did tell her my own story and give her $40. She was headed for finding a daughter.
I don’t think we realize sometimes how deeply small kindness is can affect other people.
There are times when I have done something small and pretty much forgotten about it and years later the other person has told me how much it meant.
Thank you Katy, I'm glad you were finally able to post. It is amazing that people, girls, used to hitchhike and while terrible things did happen--in one case to a friend of mine--you could generally trust people. Its also amazing what you say, how sometimes something small at the right moment can make such a difference
Thanks for sharing these stories. Makes me reflect how scared people are of each other these days.
In terms of a "a realistic story about the goodness also inherent in human life" I always think of the short story writers who are usually negative, but sometimes go the other way. Raymond Carver's Cathedral is a classic, and Jhumpa Lahiri's The Third and Final Continent. Richard Yates has one called A Really Good Jazz Piano where he manages to squeeze something positive out of pretty unpleasant characters. Maybe these stories work because they come at the end of mostly downbeat collections. I also liked Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These.
My #1 recommendation that I keep recommending to everyone is a graphic memoir, Everything Is Flammable, by Gabrielle Bell. Bell's mother is an off-the-grid recluse whose house burns down so Bell helps her buy a prefabricated house. The way people help out feels very realistic and positive. I especially like the ex-con neighbor who derives self-esteem from helping Bell's mother. Great art, very dialogue heavy.
Again, thank you, for lifting my spirits, all our spirits. Kindness doesn't get enough attention. Where would we be without it? It's probably these acts of gratuitous consideration that hold the world together. The prevalance of unkindness and the hegemony of selfish people demeaning unselfishly kind people as some version of the archetypal Damon Runyon 'chump' or 'mark' is why the fabric feels so distressed and fragile. But these pieces you right where you find the light as the darkness comes on give me encouragement to maybe get out of my head and do something decent for people I meet who need help. Thanks on Thanksgiving.
So, so, so lovely. Thank you so much for this. Helped me remember/ recover the many acts of past kindness buried under the pile of my currently troubled emotions… A gift that couldn’t be timelier. Thank you.
I really loved and appreciated this post. I have memories of kindnesses from strangers when I was young and vulnerable myself, often when I was stuck on the side of the road with a busted car for one reason or another and no money, trying to get to work. I have also thanked those people in my heart, as you say. All of these years later I still think about them. I wish for good things to come their way. Thank-you, Mary.
Not sure why but replaying that song by the Four Tops got me crying.
I think because I was also your age at the time when that song first appeared on the radio, and it was informing my ‘future self’ about a condition I was too young to understand at the time.
This describes the place where so many of us are mired: "I’ve been having a lot of thoughts and too many feelings about the same things everyone is thinking/feeling about, particularly regarding the election, Ukraine and the Middle East." Your post is a beautiful antidote to the feeling of being marooned in a reality we can't control and in a world we don't recognize for its cruelty and callousness. The violence and destruction; the spectacle of Elon Musk pogoing at DJT's side.
I'm grateful to be able to read your work this morning and to return to a reality that I want to be a part of ...
While I enjoyed the anecdotes too (and the Susan Meiselas photo, no less! Have you read Carnival Strippers?), they are still the lawn furniture in lava, while your key existential question persists: What might I want to read now?
Or rather, 'What might I want to write'? Or 'have to write'? (Is writing a public service?) Read or write, the question only feels difficult because of the last word. 'So I've asked myself, what might I want to read' sounds relaxed without the ominous 'now'.
I think 'now' is a matter of balance because humans contain time. The older we get, the more time we carry around. Every moment triggers a storm inside, and that storm becomes a personal now that is ridiculously different for everyone, especially older people.
The more I think about it, the more comfort I gain from the lovely and loveable world inside. Honestly, I'd rather endlessly listen to your random stories from the past than witness a highly relevant broadcast from the current lava.
This comment might feel old, but I am, somehow, almost 20 years younger than you. I didn't know you lived in Toronto! It's a different city for me now that I realize you are still walking around here, in a way.
P.S. It's so challenging to write to a writer! Before I immigrated to Canada decades ago, it took me a couple of Russian sentences to understand a person's background. I think and write in English these days, but I still have to keep the user manual close to apply this tool correctly. I am in awe of Nabokov's ability to transform himself into an English writer (unless he had a lot of help from his editors, I never looked into it, actually).
Thank you for the interesting response. It did not occur to me that the word "now" would seem ominous! What I'm in the mood for in terms of reading can change and I imagine that's true for many people. You're right that its a matter of the personal storm but political situations can affect the barometric pressure, that's pretty normal. What I might want to write can change too and yes what I write on SStack is a kind of public service, I'm charging for it so I do feel like I need to think about what people might want to see "now" or ever. I don't feel that way about fiction and even though I am probably, in some subterranean way, sensitive to the presence and wishes of readers I find I work best when I'm not thinking about it--I don't find that I can predict what people will like anyway.
I was in Toronto this past October--I still have a good friend there--and yes, it has changed a lot. But I still recognize it and have a good feeling about it. I wish I had something romantic to say about it, but beyond a few snatched images from bars and scenes from streets, random bits of song, places of business and cheap rooms I can't summon much but a strangely warm feeling that attaches to it all.
I don't believe that Nabokov had help from editors, from what I've read he was pretty resistant to their input, and perhaps for good reason. The version of Signs and Symbols in the NYer is not as good as the one that he published in a collection later, starting with the weird reversal of words in the title...
I'm glad you liked the picture. I haven't read the book, I was looking for photos and really liked that one. She is so adorable!
I miss Toronto from 20 years ago, when I first came here. It was cheap and small compared to Moscow, which scaled up to New York proportions in the beginning of the 00s. I enjoyed how small and rough Toronto was, free from the big city wrapper that turns all social life into a show.
It never felt romantic to me, actually, and I appreciated that too. It's like a comfort friend who's always dry. I imagine it was 10x that when you were living here, and certainly, a young woman's life at that time was drastically different from anything I could ever experience. Thankfully, you let us peek in there with your writing.
The Carnival Strippers book seems to be a fascinating peek too. Here is an introduction from Susan Meiselas herself:
"From 1972 to 1975, I spent my summers photographing and interviewing women who performed striptease for small town carnivals in New England, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. As I followed the girl shows from town to town, I photographed the dancers' public performances as well as their private lives. I also taped interviews with the dancers, their boyfriends, the show managers, and paying customers".
She even has audio interviews from those times on her website. I never got my copy despite preordering the third edition. Something went wrong, and they never sent it to me, but I read many excerpts and interviews.
Most people are good and kind and *nice* but humans are hooked on the idea that conflict makes a good story so we tend to share stories about folk being cruel towards each other, which in turn encourages cruelty, possibly? There are plenty of stories to be told which don't revolve around conflict or cruelty and it's important to share them so thank you, Mary, for telling us about these beautiful instances of compassion x
PS: the phrase 'reach out' seems to have been co-opted by the corporate world but that won't stop us genuinely reaching out to each other
I loved that song when I was 12. I remember also delighting in the rhymes. I too used to hitchhike and land in a strange city not knowing where I’d stay. Funny that we did it as if it were normal. Thank you for a beautiful piece, and I look forward to part two.
Better late than never I’ve finished reading this piece. Mary, you really did luck out on the people who took you into their homes. I know you’ve paid it forward.
My third and fourth grade teacher wouldn’t let us use the words ‘nice’ or ‘kind’ — she said they’d lost their meaning. 55 years later I think both words, along with the sentiments and actions they convey, are vastly underrated. They are so sorely needed now by everyone.
When I worked in a homeless shelter, I’d sometimes get asked what I liked most about my job. My answer was always the same. I get paid to be nice and kind to people. Somehow that always seemed to surprise the person asking the question. I’ve no idea what they were expecting.
What I actually did a lot of the time felt more like playground monitoring (arguments in the lounge over tv channels) or being an enforcer (of the rules around acceptable versus unacceptable behaviour and language). But when I was sitting down with individuals working on their case plans, I liked to spend the time listening to their stories and learning about their lives.
Being kind and nice to our shelter guests was easy. Most of them had experienced a profound lack of it during their lives and especially in the period leading up to them coming into the shelter. Simply taking the time to listen to them was an act of kindness they recognized and appreciated since most of them felt nobody ever heard or listened to them. They especially felt unheard by ‘the system’.
It (the listening) was usually time I didn’t have and often didn’t get paid for. It was a union job and we weren’t supposed to do overtime without permission. Working the afternoon shift, i was supposed to leave at 11pm. At least once a week it would be midnight one or three o clock before I left. I could get my writing finished in the quiet of graveyards. Manager after manager castigated me for my poor time keeping. They argued it was an insurance issue. Had anything happened to me, I might not have been covered by Workers Comp. I chose to stay oblivious. Sometimes I managed better (if I had a coworker I could drop off at the sky train station to save them the walk).
This was the first and last job where I was supposed to stick to a rigid time clock regardless of whether or not I’d finished my work. It didn’t come naturally. But taking the time to listen always struck me as the most important thing I could do. And I could do it working the Friday to Sunday afternoon shift without the distractions inherent in Monday-Friday office hours. They weren’t the most palatable hours as far as my social life was concerned (it evaporated), but worth it for the job satisfaction. Sometimes it also earned me cooperation from some of our most difficult guests. Quid pro quo. Honey works better than vinegar.
Likewise, when people were in need of something like denture glue or cleaner, I’d do my best to ‘find it’ in donations the next time I came into work. Little things that didn’t cost me much but made a world of difference to the person I was giving it to. I couldn’t bear it when people were going hungry because they couldn’t chew their food or had trouble talking because their dentures were clacking up and down.
It’s usually quite easy to be nice and kind. It’s little things like trying to help the mother with an unhappy youngster on an airplane instead of getting bent out of shape if the little one is having a rough time or being difficult. Usually it’s just a little time and not much effort.
And yes, I do remember some of the acts of kindness extended my way in the past — especially the people who found me jobs when I was in grad school — jobs I realized years later that didn’t really need doing.
Thank you Mary for sharing your experiences with us.
And thank you for this great comment which I am just seeing now. Your third grade teacher sounds really hardcore! I'm not sure in a good way, but at least she made you think...
damn, mary. who knew this was something i needed to read, on the eve of thanksgiving, no less. it's been hard to wrap my head around the casual selfish cruelty this election revealed about so many among us; reading about these instances of kindness was a necessary reminder that there is another side. and i'd forgotten how much i love that four tops song. your entire last paragraph of this post really hit home. thank you.
Thank you, again!
I am so grateful to have managed to say Thank You to some of the people who looked after the hapless and clueless me in my late-teens and early-twenties -- *something* good must come from the internet and the ability it has granted us to track people down. But most of my benefactors are lost to me -- for instance the police officer who, after having caught me red-handed shoplifting at the 7-Eleven (the one time I ever stole anything besides food), and -- after I had stupidly and transparently lied to try to escape -- delivered a come-to-Jesus admonition that laid it on not a millimeter too thick, and then told me he hoped I had learned something and that he was going to send me on my way -- "It's a judgment call -- you seem like a good kid" he told me when I asked him, baffled, "why?" I have tried to "pay forward" some of this kindness and forbearance, though I am sure I am still in arrears. What your stories really drive home to me, though, is how entwined and interconnected we are. Who can tell me what parts of of what I have learned or loved from reading your sentences have come indirectly from these encounters and your reflections on them? And the fact that these people were able to rise to the occasion themselves also did not spring out of nothing -- whence did that woman's generosity arise, or that of the kind driver who picked you up hitchhiking? I sometimes think that every kindness I manage to do is not mine but only passing through me. I don't think this notion erases my initiative or my responsibility; but it gives me another occasion for gratitude. As does, it is fitting to say, this post. Thank you.
(Edit added later): Wanted too to say that the essay by Nabokov is one of my favorites by him, and I feel keenly the dilemma you sketch of how to say fitting or artful or moving things at a time when so much power is bent upon either turning the world into slag or making sure that we see only -- and perhaps turn into -- the moral equivalent of such slag. Keep the faith.
What incredible anecdotes. Thank you for sharing these stories.
I often hitchhiked in my vulnerable young days when I had no car. Coming back from Mexico penniless I ran out of money in Brownsville Texas and started hitchhiking, heading back to Aspen, Colo. where I’d been fired from my job.
A college age guy in a fraternity t shirt picked me up, didn’t talk much, and then offered me a motel room for the night if I would “turn tricks,“ for him and his friends. I thought to myself, don’t you have a sister, don’t you have a mother?
He let me out soon after I refused, actually just shook my head. And then a couple whom I’d met on the train to Brownsville, saw me there and picked me up. They were worried for me. They took me to a station and bought me a bus ticket to Denver, and essentially suggested I pay it forward. I then hitched in the snow in my hippie Mexico dress from Denver to Aspen.
Another married couple picked me up and afterwards the man, the husband, wrote me a dear kind letter and offered to buy me whatever books I would like to have. Like a father. I didn’t respond.
But many many years later, I did have the opportunity to pick up another single female hitchhiking, in the rain, just over the Golden Gate Bridge in a fairly dangerous spot. I couldn’t take her very far, but I did tell her my own story and give her $40. She was headed for finding a daughter.
I don’t think we realize sometimes how deeply small kindness is can affect other people.
There are times when I have done something small and pretty much forgotten about it and years later the other person has told me how much it meant.
Thank you Katy, I'm glad you were finally able to post. It is amazing that people, girls, used to hitchhike and while terrible things did happen--in one case to a friend of mine--you could generally trust people. Its also amazing what you say, how sometimes something small at the right moment can make such a difference
Thanks for sharing these stories. Makes me reflect how scared people are of each other these days.
In terms of a "a realistic story about the goodness also inherent in human life" I always think of the short story writers who are usually negative, but sometimes go the other way. Raymond Carver's Cathedral is a classic, and Jhumpa Lahiri's The Third and Final Continent. Richard Yates has one called A Really Good Jazz Piano where he manages to squeeze something positive out of pretty unpleasant characters. Maybe these stories work because they come at the end of mostly downbeat collections. I also liked Claire Keegan's Small Things Like These.
My #1 recommendation that I keep recommending to everyone is a graphic memoir, Everything Is Flammable, by Gabrielle Bell. Bell's mother is an off-the-grid recluse whose house burns down so Bell helps her buy a prefabricated house. The way people help out feels very realistic and positive. I especially like the ex-con neighbor who derives self-esteem from helping Bell's mother. Great art, very dialogue heavy.
Again, thank you, for lifting my spirits, all our spirits. Kindness doesn't get enough attention. Where would we be without it? It's probably these acts of gratuitous consideration that hold the world together. The prevalance of unkindness and the hegemony of selfish people demeaning unselfishly kind people as some version of the archetypal Damon Runyon 'chump' or 'mark' is why the fabric feels so distressed and fragile. But these pieces you right where you find the light as the darkness comes on give me encouragement to maybe get out of my head and do something decent for people I meet who need help. Thanks on Thanksgiving.
So, so, so lovely. Thank you so much for this. Helped me remember/ recover the many acts of past kindness buried under the pile of my currently troubled emotions… A gift that couldn’t be timelier. Thank you.
I really loved and appreciated this post. I have memories of kindnesses from strangers when I was young and vulnerable myself, often when I was stuck on the side of the road with a busted car for one reason or another and no money, trying to get to work. I have also thanked those people in my heart, as you say. All of these years later I still think about them. I wish for good things to come their way. Thank-you, Mary.
Beautiful.
Not sure why but replaying that song by the Four Tops got me crying.
I think because I was also your age at the time when that song first appeared on the radio, and it was informing my ‘future self’ about a condition I was too young to understand at the time.
But as you noted, I felt it nonetheless.
I have a sense that in the heyday of Motown The Four Tops were considered sort of second tier. They were much underrated.
oh Mary-I loved this post so much.
This describes the place where so many of us are mired: "I’ve been having a lot of thoughts and too many feelings about the same things everyone is thinking/feeling about, particularly regarding the election, Ukraine and the Middle East." Your post is a beautiful antidote to the feeling of being marooned in a reality we can't control and in a world we don't recognize for its cruelty and callousness. The violence and destruction; the spectacle of Elon Musk pogoing at DJT's side.
I'm grateful to be able to read your work this morning and to return to a reality that I want to be a part of ...
While I enjoyed the anecdotes too (and the Susan Meiselas photo, no less! Have you read Carnival Strippers?), they are still the lawn furniture in lava, while your key existential question persists: What might I want to read now?
Or rather, 'What might I want to write'? Or 'have to write'? (Is writing a public service?) Read or write, the question only feels difficult because of the last word. 'So I've asked myself, what might I want to read' sounds relaxed without the ominous 'now'.
I think 'now' is a matter of balance because humans contain time. The older we get, the more time we carry around. Every moment triggers a storm inside, and that storm becomes a personal now that is ridiculously different for everyone, especially older people.
The more I think about it, the more comfort I gain from the lovely and loveable world inside. Honestly, I'd rather endlessly listen to your random stories from the past than witness a highly relevant broadcast from the current lava.
This comment might feel old, but I am, somehow, almost 20 years younger than you. I didn't know you lived in Toronto! It's a different city for me now that I realize you are still walking around here, in a way.
P.S. It's so challenging to write to a writer! Before I immigrated to Canada decades ago, it took me a couple of Russian sentences to understand a person's background. I think and write in English these days, but I still have to keep the user manual close to apply this tool correctly. I am in awe of Nabokov's ability to transform himself into an English writer (unless he had a lot of help from his editors, I never looked into it, actually).
Thank you for the interesting response. It did not occur to me that the word "now" would seem ominous! What I'm in the mood for in terms of reading can change and I imagine that's true for many people. You're right that its a matter of the personal storm but political situations can affect the barometric pressure, that's pretty normal. What I might want to write can change too and yes what I write on SStack is a kind of public service, I'm charging for it so I do feel like I need to think about what people might want to see "now" or ever. I don't feel that way about fiction and even though I am probably, in some subterranean way, sensitive to the presence and wishes of readers I find I work best when I'm not thinking about it--I don't find that I can predict what people will like anyway.
I was in Toronto this past October--I still have a good friend there--and yes, it has changed a lot. But I still recognize it and have a good feeling about it. I wish I had something romantic to say about it, but beyond a few snatched images from bars and scenes from streets, random bits of song, places of business and cheap rooms I can't summon much but a strangely warm feeling that attaches to it all.
I don't believe that Nabokov had help from editors, from what I've read he was pretty resistant to their input, and perhaps for good reason. The version of Signs and Symbols in the NYer is not as good as the one that he published in a collection later, starting with the weird reversal of words in the title...
I'm glad you liked the picture. I haven't read the book, I was looking for photos and really liked that one. She is so adorable!
I miss Toronto from 20 years ago, when I first came here. It was cheap and small compared to Moscow, which scaled up to New York proportions in the beginning of the 00s. I enjoyed how small and rough Toronto was, free from the big city wrapper that turns all social life into a show.
It never felt romantic to me, actually, and I appreciated that too. It's like a comfort friend who's always dry. I imagine it was 10x that when you were living here, and certainly, a young woman's life at that time was drastically different from anything I could ever experience. Thankfully, you let us peek in there with your writing.
The Carnival Strippers book seems to be a fascinating peek too. Here is an introduction from Susan Meiselas herself:
"From 1972 to 1975, I spent my summers photographing and interviewing women who performed striptease for small town carnivals in New England, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. As I followed the girl shows from town to town, I photographed the dancers' public performances as well as their private lives. I also taped interviews with the dancers, their boyfriends, the show managers, and paying customers".
She even has audio interviews from those times on her website. I never got my copy despite preordering the third edition. Something went wrong, and they never sent it to me, but I read many excerpts and interviews.
Most people are good and kind and *nice* but humans are hooked on the idea that conflict makes a good story so we tend to share stories about folk being cruel towards each other, which in turn encourages cruelty, possibly? There are plenty of stories to be told which don't revolve around conflict or cruelty and it's important to share them so thank you, Mary, for telling us about these beautiful instances of compassion x
PS: the phrase 'reach out' seems to have been co-opted by the corporate world but that won't stop us genuinely reaching out to each other
I loved that song when I was 12. I remember also delighting in the rhymes. I too used to hitchhike and land in a strange city not knowing where I’d stay. Funny that we did it as if it were normal. Thank you for a beautiful piece, and I look forward to part two.
"Funny that we did it as if it were normal."
I know!
The writing on holidays is always so terribly banal. This was riveting and absorbing as well as inspiring
Better late than never I’ve finished reading this piece. Mary, you really did luck out on the people who took you into their homes. I know you’ve paid it forward.
My third and fourth grade teacher wouldn’t let us use the words ‘nice’ or ‘kind’ — she said they’d lost their meaning. 55 years later I think both words, along with the sentiments and actions they convey, are vastly underrated. They are so sorely needed now by everyone.
When I worked in a homeless shelter, I’d sometimes get asked what I liked most about my job. My answer was always the same. I get paid to be nice and kind to people. Somehow that always seemed to surprise the person asking the question. I’ve no idea what they were expecting.
What I actually did a lot of the time felt more like playground monitoring (arguments in the lounge over tv channels) or being an enforcer (of the rules around acceptable versus unacceptable behaviour and language). But when I was sitting down with individuals working on their case plans, I liked to spend the time listening to their stories and learning about their lives.
Being kind and nice to our shelter guests was easy. Most of them had experienced a profound lack of it during their lives and especially in the period leading up to them coming into the shelter. Simply taking the time to listen to them was an act of kindness they recognized and appreciated since most of them felt nobody ever heard or listened to them. They especially felt unheard by ‘the system’.
It (the listening) was usually time I didn’t have and often didn’t get paid for. It was a union job and we weren’t supposed to do overtime without permission. Working the afternoon shift, i was supposed to leave at 11pm. At least once a week it would be midnight one or three o clock before I left. I could get my writing finished in the quiet of graveyards. Manager after manager castigated me for my poor time keeping. They argued it was an insurance issue. Had anything happened to me, I might not have been covered by Workers Comp. I chose to stay oblivious. Sometimes I managed better (if I had a coworker I could drop off at the sky train station to save them the walk).
This was the first and last job where I was supposed to stick to a rigid time clock regardless of whether or not I’d finished my work. It didn’t come naturally. But taking the time to listen always struck me as the most important thing I could do. And I could do it working the Friday to Sunday afternoon shift without the distractions inherent in Monday-Friday office hours. They weren’t the most palatable hours as far as my social life was concerned (it evaporated), but worth it for the job satisfaction. Sometimes it also earned me cooperation from some of our most difficult guests. Quid pro quo. Honey works better than vinegar.
Likewise, when people were in need of something like denture glue or cleaner, I’d do my best to ‘find it’ in donations the next time I came into work. Little things that didn’t cost me much but made a world of difference to the person I was giving it to. I couldn’t bear it when people were going hungry because they couldn’t chew their food or had trouble talking because their dentures were clacking up and down.
It’s usually quite easy to be nice and kind. It’s little things like trying to help the mother with an unhappy youngster on an airplane instead of getting bent out of shape if the little one is having a rough time or being difficult. Usually it’s just a little time and not much effort.
And yes, I do remember some of the acts of kindness extended my way in the past — especially the people who found me jobs when I was in grad school — jobs I realized years later that didn’t really need doing.
Thank you Mary for sharing your experiences with us.
And thank you for this great comment which I am just seeing now. Your third grade teacher sounds really hardcore! I'm not sure in a good way, but at least she made you think...