“If you have an impulse to kindness, act on it.”
—Douglas Coupland
Life can be stressful, and it doesn’t take much to tip the scales of worry and anxiety against us.
I was recently looking for work and applying to jobs, which is something that no one enjoys. After months of stress, I was moving forward with a company in another state. I just needed to get my background check done and things would be good to go. The organization mailed me fingerprint cards for my background check and told me to go get it done by any local police station.
I called five police stations but, after COVID, none of them would do fingerprinting for the public. This last hurdle to employment was taking a while and my future employer was getting impatient. Finally, I found a state agency that could do my fingerprints. I went to the location and a very friendly man helped me out and got my fingerprints. He had to print something extra on the fingerprint paper but when it went through the printer the warmth of the printer destroyed heat sensitive portions of the form. I…was…stressed. It was going to take weeks to get new cards and a new fingerprinting appointment. More time than my future employer would wait.
Thankfully, the fingerprinting employee stayed positive and was very kind. He quickly printed off sheets and redid my fingerprints, writing a note about what happened. He told me to send the new ones with the old, ruined ones and assured me things would be ok. I left and walked to my car, a little concerned.
Suddenly I heard a whistle and I saw the fingerprinting employee jogging towards me. He had run all the way out of the building and across the parking lot to catch up. He said that after I left, he wanted to make sure things worked out. He wrote an additional note for the records and told me that if they weren’t accepted, I can come get new fingerprinting done for free.
This was a very small thing, but this random government employee went way above and beyond what was expected. Even to chasing after me in the parking lot. It really did a lot to calm my worries, and, thanks to his notes, the fingerprinting was accepted, and everything worked out.
This small act of kindness someone did for me made a huge difference and highlighted just how much change and positivity we can create in the world with one kind act a day.
-MT
A Working Man