Just Doing Their Job

Happy Memorial Day!  

This blog post is actually about a different kind of service people, though it also fits veterans.  I wanted to say I appreciate everyone who goes out of their way to be friendly and helpful when it doesn't affect their paycheck.  

You all know from past posts that my dad is fighting cancer.  Well this past week was a bit up and down, but there were several people who gave me a lot of encouragement just by doing their jobs.  

Two of them were local Food Lion employees.  

My dad's been having trouble keeping food down, and mom sent me off to pick up something that he'd been having a little easier time eating.  She wrote down the brand and everything -problem was, once I was in the store I couldn't find it.  I had to call on a floor worker, who had to call on another employee while he was in the middle of doing his job.  They found it for me and the whole time they were very helpful and cheerful and didn't seem to mind being interrupted by a slightly lost customer puzzled by labeling.  

I don't often think about it when a store employee helps me out but that day my errand was so important that I really noticed -and really appreciated- not just the help, but the fact that they didn't seem to find me a bother, even though I was interrupting their work.  They didn't know my dad was sick.  They were just doing their job.  But it made a huge difference to me that they did it cheerfully.

The other incident was a lot more serious: a mess up in paperwork that we were afraid might prevent dad from getting proper treatment.  We all started praying, and mom started phoning, and one of the people she called got the matter straitened out so fast that it was handled the evening of the same day she called!  If you've ever dealt with paperwork, you can appreciate that this was a miracle.  We were very much rejoicing.  We were also thankful that the people involved cared enough to get right on the matter.  

People don't always see how their lives affect others, but to those who do your work well, who are willing to help the people you serve, Thank You.  And a special thanks to those out protecting our country.