The Random Acts of Kindness Thread

[Bear]

I just saved a bunch of cute ickle bebbeh birdies who can't quite fly properly yet from an ebil kitty who wanted to turn them into noms.

[farthingale]

Well done, Bear!

Alichan scared off a couple of vicious dogs yesterday who were chasing down some rabbits. This happened while we were on the phone, and I was lucky to hear Vishus-Alichan at work!

[Dirty n Evil]

I totally forgot to post this from the other night!

I had to work an overnight shift on Wednesday with my boss, there were some things that needed to be taken care of at my store. Now, he really never worked overnight shifts with any frequency, and so he forgot to bring anything to eat. I planned ahead, and picked up a few things to eat for myself. I had planned on just buying one of these Marie Callendar chicken, mushroom, and brocolli pot pies for myself - and yet, I felt this nudge as I was making the decision. A conscious push, accompanied with the thought, "I should buy two, just in case I want a second one later in the week when perhaps I don't feel like going out of the store for food." It was strange, but I went with the instinct.

Half way through the night, I noticed that my boss Mart hadn't taken a lunch hour yet and asked him, "did you forget to bring some food?" He admitted yes, it hadn't crossed his mind. So I told him about the spare pot pie and offered it to him. You could honestly see his eyes light up and he smiled, thankful for the happy coincidence. I was just glad for that odd (and it even felt like a foreign thought in my head) instinct to buy and extra dinner.

[farthingale]

That's lovely. Such a small gesture, but it really makes a difference in someone's life! There's nothing like being given food at work when you're starving and are expecting to have to deal with it until you go home.

[Alisonchan]

This thread makes me so mega-happy. :3 I come and read some of the nice things all of you have done when I'm feeling down about society and it always cheers me up. I like re-reading the old ones too. They give me the warm fuzzies.

[Bear]

I've spent most of the day scaring off a big wood pigeon from my garden as he keeps comming in and eating/stealing all of the food from the sparrow family in my garden... and with 5 chicks I'd rather see those little critters eat then a bird the size of a small chicken.

[The Con]

I helped a little old woman down the street move into her house.


Apparently her son was supposed to be there but he was stuck in traffic.
I was just going out for my walk when I passed a house with a bunch of boxes in the yard and she was trying to get a box up the steps, so I kind of felt bad and decided I'd help her out.

It was nice, she shared a lot of stories with me as I helped her out.
She tried to pay me after too.

[Alisonchan]

YESSSSSSSSS! ^-^ *HIGHFIVES FOAR THE CON*

[Swayambhu]

A customer came in today and complained about a product she bought from us. The receipt she had was from nearly three months past the expiration date, and the product she returned to us wasn't even on the voided receipt.

We tried to explain these things to her, and she got angry with us, telling us that she's not going to do our job by reading the rules on the receipt we give to customers. And every time we tried to get her to read something of importance, she screamed, "It ain't my goddamn job to read! It's yours! Now gimme my fucking money back!"

The poor, pathetic, soundless thing. I could tell she was suffering from a severe case of imbecility, so I did her a favor (did us all a favor, and by all, I don't mean just me and the co-workers, but the whole fucking world) and used every bit of strength I had to put my fist through her empty head. How she was functioning purely on air, I don't know.

You'd count that as an act of kindness, right?

[CyanideAngel]

I doubt it counts but you get a high five for it

[thaldin]

*swoons at Sway* =)

[farthingale]

I so rarely feel that anything I do is 'kind'. I suppose I see myself as largely selfish. But I felt good about myself today, because I leant a hand and put myself back in a situation I really hate, to be helpful.

As you recall, since Friday I've been loathing myself, running low on every good chemical my brain makes, running ragged and raw with feelings of failure, guilt and worthlessness with the marking of this term's CAS and Exam papers. I've had very little sleep, and what little I had was disturbed in the shape of anxiety dreams.

Well I found today that one of my co-workers has been feeling the exact same way. Because, while I steeled myself to be shat on yesterday, willing to take what came, and handed in my marks that morning, I found that this teacher was not yet done marking, let alone doing the sheets and conversions. I'm not close with anyone on the staff, but I consider her a work-friend. Though not someone I feel I can casually open-up to. I'm pals with one of the admin ladies who do the mark processing, though, and she told me that the reason the reports weren't ready to go out, and why the higher ups were seething, was because this woman was still snowed under. She was upstairs, door closed, trying to hide and doing the hours-long panic-attack we teachers call 'last minute marking'. And it literally IS a constant panic attack, with all the recorded symptoms.

I went to offer myself to her, even though I couldn't really mark her papers because I don't know the subject well enough to cope with deivations from the marking memoradum. So she had me write the +/- 60 Grade 11 names into a spreadsheet for her, then enter and convert the term marks she had already finished with, and ditto with the Grade 10s. This is grunt work which really burns into the brain of a teacher scrambling to actually make sense of academic work and not just fluff it. It's a time-waster. So by doing that, it meant that the stuff she finished with could be recorded by me as it was done, and she wouldn't have to cut her focus. Unfortunately, I got called into a meeting eventually and so couuldn't keep helping. :\ I wanted to, but I only got let out pretty late, and Russ wanted to go home. And I'm still pretty beat.

So I feel good that I put myself back into that hell for the sake of someone else. I had to consciously tell myself that these were not my papers, and that my storm was over, to keep from slipping into panic mode myself! (Though, on a slightly downer of a note, my heart started acting up again today during the meeting, and hurt. Stupid heart.)

[Don Alexander]

Awesome, farth!!!!!

I'm sure alison will like to hear that. Not so sure about Sway's post, though! ;)

[Otaku201]

An old lady wanted to show off a reply to a letter that she wrote to our senator. Said she needed help because she didn't know how to put the letter up for everyone to see online. I volunteered to help her, thinking it would be something complicated she wanted to do. It was just a simple copy and paste that she wanted. I put it online for her, poor thing thought that the senator actually took the time to personally reply to her letter. As I read it, it was clearly a form letter with her name on it. Anyway I wasn't nearly as helpful as I expected to be, but she was clearly grateful. "You are SO much more patient than my son!"

[Don Alexander]