Just Be Nice
Wednesday, May 27th, 2009It’s Free and Easy
Masae and I learned a very valuable lesson walking down Kalakaua Avenue after dinner the other night. We were with Pamela and Hamo Alualu. Kalakaua Avenue is lined with “flyer people” handing out all sorts of leaflets and advertising. I have over the years developed a pretty good “waive-off” motion as they reach out to me. As we passed one of them, Hamo accepted his hand-out, and as we walked away Pamela asked him, “Why did you take that?” His answer had impact. He casually said, “Just to be nice.” Wow! Think about that. Masae and I found ourselves talking about that the rest of the evening. “Flyer folks” take a lot of rejection and hear some pretty abusive comments. After all, they are just doing their job, and the pay isn’t that great, what’s wrong with being nice? You can just as easily throw the ad flyer away once you are out of site, but in the process you made someone feel successful, even if it’s for a moment.
Mahalo Hamo for the lesson. I will be much nicer from here on.











