9.23 At Your Service

Nosing around the pasta aisle at my local grocery store, trying to decide between tomato or Alfredo sauce, a tiny older lady approached me. "Excuse me," she said. "Do you have any of that whole wheat pasta?" I looked around and realized she was talking to me.

She hadn't yet noticed that I didn't work at the store and continued, "I'm looking for linguine noodles, specifically." I said, "Oh, ah, I don't actually work here." She just shrugged and shuffled away. I grabbed a box of pasta and ran after her, saying, "Wait, here's your whole wheat pasta!"

A few days later, I was at my office and got up to take a break. My office is a co-working space and as members, we wear name tags on lanyards to aid in creating a friendly atmosphere. A young man, obviously lost, stood in the hallway. He saw my name tag and asked if I worked here. I answered in the affirmative, which was technically true. He was waiting to take a tour of the building and potentially becoming a member.

What the hell, I figured, I'll take him for the tour. I've been a member for a few years, I'm pretty familiar with the building. So, I took him around, showed him the space, answered any questions, and by the end, I think I sold him on it.

These were harmless acts of service. You might've heard about this next one on the local news. It was even trending on Twitter for about a minute.

On a bus, we came to a stop and the driver left the vehicle. He took all his stuff and just left. I've seen this before - drivers leave the bus running instead of waiting for the shift replacement. After almost ten minutes, the passengers were getting restless. I stood up and walked over to the driver's seat. Studied the controls and said out loud, "It's just like driving a car."

It's not like driving a car. At all.

I pulled away from the curb and although it started off as a bumpy ride, I soon got the hang of it. All I wanted to do was be of service and get all the passengers to their stops. When I reached the Ossington subway station, there was a whole party of people, public transit officials, and police officers waiting for me.

Let's just say that I've learned to stick to the pasta aisle and office tours.