An Office That Works
My husband recently had to get some things done at Officeworks. Over the course of two days he spent a couple of hours in the store and interacted with numerous staff members.
As he finally completed his work he left the store reflecting on his time there. He was so impressed by the staff and their positive attitude, even at times when they were met by cranky customers who were in a hurry.
He thought about jumping online to tweet Officeworks head office but worried his message wouldn’t get back down to this level. So he turned around and went back into the shop to ask for the store manager.
He found a female staff member who he had interacted with numerous times. She had been the friendliest most helpful staff member and had a great sense of humour.
He asked her who the manager was and it just so happened to be her. He told her about the hours he had spent in the store and how impressed he was with the staff there.
She was so happy to hear this. So often they only get told the negative things so it was lovely to hear the positives too.
As my husband told me this encounter of his day it reminded me of two important things:
- We can never encourage people enough. If we see or experience something positive we might think it but let’s be more proactive about voicing our pleasure rather than just our disappointments
- The leader has a big impact on the rest of the team. It didn’t surprise me to hear that it was this particularly positive staff member who ended up being the manager. No wonder the rest of her team were positive as well.
Both these reminders show that we do have an impact on other people. We can either chose for that impression to be positive or decide to be indifferent about how we make people feel.
People will leave feeling differently after meeting with you. Jesus once said that people will know if you follow Jesus by your love. If you love others then it speaks volumes of who you are committed to.
May we live in such a loving positive way that it can never be deniable as to who we worship.
Lord, You had an incredible impact on people. After they met you they were never the same again. Help us to be more conscious of how we impact others. May we work towards being a positive impact so that people may know we follow You. Amen.
Would people recognise you as a Christian by your actions?
This article was written by Linda Bailey
Linda started theological studies in 1999 in Australia. After working for ten years in various church ministries, she now works as the breakfast producer at 89.9 LightFM - the Christian radio station in Melbourne, Australia. She writes blogs every day about passages she is currently reading in the Bible. Follow her on Google Plus +Linda Bailey or Facebook by clicking the like button on the right of this page.