My birthday's coming around in a few days, so it's got me being a little nostalgic. I used to work at a gas station at an intersection between one of the main streets and a off-chute street in my old town. It was a pretty big gas station. It had the gas pumps out front, the main store where people could buy things like candy and drinks and, well, gas, as well as, car wash in the back. I would handle the registers, answer questions, stock shelves, and clean out the car wash at night.
I remember one day this Indian woman comes in with a cute little three or four year-old baby on her hip. I don't remember exactly what she said, but it when something along the lines of "do you know a towing service I could call?". My first response was to ask her what the problem was. She then went on to tell me that she had a flat tire, and she'd just pulled around to the back where the car wash was.
I asked if she had a spare. She said yes. At that point, I kind of put on a confused face, and asked her why she didn't just go and change the tire...she didn't know how. Well, I said "in that case I can probably change it for you". She responded by saying "Oh, no you don't have to do that". "No it's fine, let me just ask my boss if I can", I said. Went to the back to ask, and the boss said it was fine, so I met her out back.
I got the flat repair kit together and started jacking the car up. As I was changing the tire, I started talking to her and she told me she was in computer science as an IT technician. She was actually a pretty cool lady know that I think about it. Anyway, I finished changing the tired, dusted my hands off, and said "You're good to go!".
She said "Thank you so much! Here take this". I looked down to see she was holding a twenty-dollar bill in her hand. I respectfully said "Ah, no thank you. I didn't help you for the money". It was at this point that she began to insist and I said "No really it's fine", and then I ran away. hahahaha, I don't know I ran away, but I guess I just didn't want to take the money or keep rejecting the offer. So, I left and went into the back of the store where only the employees can go so she couldn't get to me.
She went into the store and gave the twenty to a co-worker named Jerry and asked him "Will you give this to him?" and of course Jerry was a good honest guy so he gave me the twenty. The reason I got to thinking about was because at the time I wasn't making a lot of money. I started trying to figure out how to make more money later, but at that time I wasn't exactly rolling in it, so to say, yet at that time, I couldn't stop this woman from giving me money.
I really thought about what caused that to happen. How was it that I was making $8.00 an hour, but I couldn't stop this woman from giving $20.00 for 15 minutes worth of work. At the end of the day, after thinking about it for a while, I would say it really came down to intentions. At that moment my intentions were good. I didn't want anything, I didn't expect anything. I gave without expectation.
Obviously, it can't always be that way. We do have to be transactional sometimes, but I think that was interesting nonetheless. I hope you got something out of this. Some sort of insight, or lesson. Regardless let me know what you think, and your interpretation of that. I would love to hear you thoughts.
Much love,
Andrew
I'm glad you enjoyed it