I’ve griped repeatedly here about horrid customers who seem to relish treating servers, waiters, cashiers (anyone with a name tag, really) like smelly scum on the bottom of their shoes, and those who seem happier when they can make one of the mentioned people’s day as miserable as can be.

For every one of those, there are dozens or more who are either straightforward or easy going–that’s the bulk, really, of customers where I work.

Then you have the few who actively enjoy making employee’s lives easier. They go out of their way to bring you a smile. They tip you, even if all you did was take their order. They joke a bit with you, they smile at you, they bid you good day.

And then there are people like Ms Faith.

Ms Faith comes to my place of employment often–at least once a day for a cup of coffee and some reading time around mid-morning. Sometimes she comes back later in the day for something to eat, and some reading time. (See a pattern there?)

Every time she comes in, she greets all of us with smiles. Even though our employee turnover is horrible (I can, off the top of my head, name over a hundred people [yes, that’s 100 people] who have come and gone in just shy of two years I’ve worked here), she takes the time to learn the names of her cashiers and servers, so that she can greet us by name when she sees us again. She will never leave a dirty table or seat, and will at times clean other people’s mess, if she’s not in a hurry.

And every holiday season, she comes to the store a few days before Christmas, with one little something for every employee (we are talking some 20 people, and she’ll do multiple trips so she can catch everyone who works different shifts). It can be as simple as a little box of cocoa and a signed greeting card, or a very personalized little stocking with a heartfelt holiday card.

On Sunday she did just that, again–and then yesterday she left me yet another present: a hardback copy of The Nine Lives of Christmas by Sheila Roberts, which seems to be a Christmas romance story. (Keep in mind that Ms Faith reads suspense and thrillers, not romance, but she knows I do, so…)

Thank you, Ms Faith, for rekindling my…well, it’s not love–let’s go with tolerance–for humanity for yet another year. May you be blessed every second of every minute of your life with a thousandfold of the love and kindness you so readily show everyone around you.