taking time

during any particular day i see quite a few people at work. i don't recognize all 320+ people yet, but i do know quite a few of them by name. which, actually, for me is pretty amazing. i'm really terrible at memorizing.

one of the people (a person in management) is a really nice person. he's always friendly and smiles and is polite and 'feels' like a gentle person. so imagine my surprise when, after a year of knowing him, all of a sudden one day he snapped at me. i was so caught off-guard. my first thought was 'what did i do that was wrong?', then i thought 'wow, does he have a dark side which is just now coming out?', then i decided he was just probably having a bad day.

a little more than a week later he sent me an e-mail apologizing for his rudeness and explaining he'd been under a lot of pressure. he said he was sorry he'd been so sharp, especially when i'd always been so nice to him. i was so touched by him taking time to compose the e-mail and send it -- today's world can be so impersonal, rushed, and uncaring. i e-mailed back saying i appreciated his comments and had wondered about the incident and was pleased to hear from him and knew him to be a good person.

don't you wish everyone would reach out as nicely as he did?!