It may have been February 26, 1998, when I escorted small groups of my service representatives outside to view a solar eclipse. Taking them off-line for 10 minutes at a time was not exactly unheard of, but it met with raised eyebrows from other managers in our office building.
There were some 50 service reps in the call center, reporting up to me through a handful of supervisors. Removing 4 at a time from the call queue did not affect our call handling index whatsoever. It was entirely voluntary for the reps and did not penalize their break time.
In the company parking lot behind the building, near the dumpster, I produced a pair of 4x6 index cards, a tiny hole punched in one with a paperclip. The punctured card was held flat some 18 inches above the other, both parallel to the ground.
Mr. Science fine-tunes the apparatus
Adjusting the focal distance of the two cards by raising or lowering one or the other, a projection of the sun — a tiny, round shadow with a small bite removed — showed up on the lower card. Magic.
Each group got a 30-second glimpse and then returned to their work stations. This is a safe way to observe a solar eclipse and costs virtually nothing. I think I had read about it in the newspaper. Solid research.
Was this a pointless exercise? Maybe. Some of the reps clearly were unimpressed — a few declined the opportunity — and most were non-committal.
Solar eclipses that can be viewed from one particular spot on Earth do not come along every day. During the three years I managed the call center, there was only one visible from Wichita, Kansas, and that one only partial. Inviting office workers to see it is also dependent on day of the week, time of day, and cloud cover.
It also depends on whether there happens to be some sales incentive campaign running, making telephone reps unwilling to leave their stations for fear of missing a sale.
So why do it?
Don’t overthink it
Like most management decisions I made, it was impulsive. At my desk, I suddenly realized this was the day. There would be a window of about one hour when any piece of the eclipse could be viewed. I called the supervisors together and hastily sketched out a plan. Some of them watched me, perplexed, wondering what the ulterior motive was.
Fact was, there wasn’t one. I just thought the reps would like to see the eclipse. I had the authority, it wouldn’t hurt anything, so I decided to do it.
The Apostle writes to his young disciple: “Do good… be rich in good deeds… be generous and willing to share.” It’s not like I had been thinking about how to do something nice for the reps; I had not been hammered with this passage in a sermon; I was not trying to make up for some previous punishment I had inflicted. It just seemed like a logical thing to do.
Running in concrete goloshes
What keeps us from doing good? There are stressors that occupy our attention, and there is apathy. Neither are healthy. Some causes:
An overwhelming personal situation: Interpersonal conflicts; money troubles; health issues.
Pressures of work: Deadlines; unfulfilled obligations.
Social disengagement: Lack of involvement in the lives of others.
These are roadblocks in our way to offering kindness to others. They offer a reason — or an excuse — to focus inward on our own issue of the day.
We are social creatures. Like it or not, we cannot effectively function in isolation. Making the effort to consider what would benefit others actually benefits self and illustrates the truth of another of Paul’s encouragements: “Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.”
Social psychology, unsurprisingly, validates the health benefits of showing kindness to others. Dr. David Hamilton: “Kindness is contagious. The act of being kind to someone actually triggers a release of hormones in the brain, which reduces blood pressure and increases overall heart health.” (Paraphrase, The Five Side Effects of Kindness, 2017.)
Just do it
While I cannot claim that the eclipse-viewing episode changed anything in our workplace, it seemed clear to me that our communication with one another was respectful and harmonious. I’m not sure which came first: Was I nice to them because we communicated well? Or did we communicate well because we liked each other?
Who can say? Kindness is its own reward.
(Scripture references used above, for you insistent fact-checkers, are 1 Timothy 6:18 and Philippians 2:3.)
Give a gift — no strings attached
Here is a way you can show kindness to complete strangers: Purchase copies of Alligator Wrestling in the Cancer Ward to be handed out to patients and caregivers. Every patient who occupies a chair in the oncology waiting room is likely at the most vulnerable place their life will ever be.
Patients are at war with their own bodies’ cells that have run off the rails, consuming resources, failing in their duty and slowly snuffing the life out of their host. It is shocking, perplexing and bewildering.
For the one afflicted, there is an unaccustomed openness to matters of life, death, family and faith. Alligator Wrestling explores those issues in as non-threatening a style as possible, yet with honesty and clarity. Our hope and prayer is that readers may find hope, comfort, optimism and strength for the journey in the pages.
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