I quietly went up to the Starbucks counter at the airport…everyone around me were heads down, lost in the daily grind thoughts…I pre-paid the $100 gift card and shared with the counter girl my plan. She smiled and said that’s really, really cool. I moved to a place hidden from the line and waited as the next 12 people in line heard the news, “your bill has been taken care of”, the cute girl would say at the counter. Not a person went by that wasn’t shocked, happy, and non appreciative – this gesture woke them up…heads were up and they got lost out of their daily grind and into happiness for a few minutes. They would ask who bought it and the girl would point to me over in the corner. Happily, every single person came up to me and thanked me. They all wanted to know why and I explained, “pay it forward.” Two people said that they wanted their company to do the same thing. One man asked for my card and said he worked for a $2 billion dollar company and that they’d be calling on us for work. A father and his little girl smiled at me from ear to ear and thanked me, with the dad explaining to her what had happened.
This was so heart warming for me. So cool. It made me so proud to be a part of a company that promotes such good things. Thank you for making me happy, making the 12 people happy and all the workers happy (they had never seen this). There’s no doubt some of these people paid it forward after me.