Kindness is Key
- Bailey Edrington
- Oct 14, 2016
- 4 min read
Just the other day, I was watching the newest Cinderella movie with the kids I nanny every week. I was watching the kiddos play when I heard this line: "Have courage and be kind." I was immediately struck with the power behind this sentiment and at the time, I didn't realize how much it would resonate with me through out the week as I finished planning the dinner for Gamma Phi Beta's International President.
Not everyone you encounter will be a delight. We worked with several external sources in order to make the event for our International President happen, and not all of them were exceptionally pleasant to deal with.
I cannot stress enough the importance of this when dealing with others: always have courage and be kind.
Kindness
The importance of kindness came in to play while I waited for 45 minutes at the fabric counter for a sweet little lady to cut my measly 6 yards of fabric. She kept losing count of yardage while simultaneously dealing with impatient newlyweds who were trying to return some tulle. The couple walked up to the counter visibly irritated, so I let them go before me in line.
While they were rolling their eyes, I was trying to help the lady at the counter keep count of the yards of tulle. She was counting quite slow and kept getting distracted in the process, but about 20 minutes and 32.5 yards of tulle later, the couple was on their (not-so merry) way and it was my turn to have my fabric cut.
The lady at the fabric counter started measuring my fabric: I needed 2.5 yards of one color and 3.5 yards of another. She would measure a yard and then stop to tell me a story. I could tell this was going to take a while.
The couple before me had treated her very poorly, so I made it a point to be overly kind. I nodded and laughed with her while she told her stories, I smiled and kept count of the measurements and I waited patiently as she meticulously cut my fabric and checked and re-checked the math on the receipt.
Finally, she pinned my receipt to the fabric and slid it across the counter. I reached for it with a smile and before I could even say thank you, she put her hand over mine and looked me in the eyes and said, "Honey, I just want you to know you're an absolute delight! I am so glad you came in while I was working."
My heart instantly melted. Being kind to this woman did not require copious amounts of energy; in fact, it was quite easy and made the time pass more quickly.
Kindness is always the best option.
Courage
Now, our event coordinator tested my patience a little more than the sweet lady at the fabric counter, and this is where the courage aspect came into play. I emailed back and forth with the event coordinator from our venue a few nights before the event and I was less than thrilled with her responses. She was not the warmest personality via email, nor was she the most accommodating.
I did the best I could to be nice, but I was truly starting to lose my patience. After all, we were the ones paying for this event, it was her job to accommodate to our needs. Our requests were nothing out of the ordinary.
After several less than pleasant emails from her, I decided I was not about to let her discourage me from staying true to our vision for the event and I had to muster up the courage to stand up for it. If I didn't stand up and fight for this dinner, no one would.
I emailed politely and made my requests clear and known. What the event coordinator was unwilling to help us with, we did ourselves. She was resistant to let us customize the space on "such short notice" even though the tables hadn't even been set up for our event yet. I continued to thank her for her help, all the while making sure she was dotting her "I"s and crossing her "T"s according to our specifications.
Lo and behold, the day of the event rolled around and the event coordinator was being quite tough. Midway through the event, one of our members had an allergic reaction to the food after we made it very clear there could not be any of this food at the event. This fell entirely on the shoulders of the venue event coordinator, as she was the liaison between us and the caterers.
My patience had run very thin by this point; however, the rest of our event ran extremely smoothly and I was very happy with the end result. It had not been the easiest journey, but the destination was well-worth the work.
At the end of the event, I went up to the event coordinator and thanked her again for her help. She smiled (which was the first time she had done so in front of me) and I saw a break in her cold demeanor. She thanked me as well and we parted ways.
I am unsure as to how much she liked or disliked us, but I do hope she saw our kindness and not our frustration. It was nice to see her smile when I thanked her; I had a feeling she received more complaints than compliments in her line of work, so I hope our "thank you" was well-received.
The moral of both stories: "Have courage and be kind." Not every encounter you have will be a fairytale, but if you have courage and are kind to others, you and your event might just find your happily-ever-after when all is said and done.
(Image c/o Ridiculous Mom Ideas)
Comments