Being Appreciated

Today, I had a somewhat hard day at work.  I work at a nail salon here where I live, and have been working there for a little more than three years.  Today, it was busy and stressful and my coworkers were rushing through every customer.  I noticed a girl who was unhappy with the polish job one coworker did on her nails, and she approached me after having bumped one, telling me she wasn't too happy with the job.

Instead of fixing just one nail, I redid the polish on all her nails, apologizing for her bad experience and telling her that I hoped she would return since it was her first time at our salon.  When I looked up at her face, she was beaming, and said she would only ever return if I did her nails.  I could tell that I had made her day, and she was perfectly happy with the job I had done.  She offered to pay, but I refused, telling her that my only concern was that she left as a happy customer.  She certainly was.

She and her friends stayed and chatted as they dried their nails, striking up conversations with me and coming up with about 20 different nicknames for me, including but not limited to: DaBombDon, DonnaDawg, DonnaDaBombDotCom, D-Dogg, DaBombDonDog, etc.  We joked about Austin Powers, Chicago accents, Kentucky accents, and they made faces at each other and to me.

I was happy to have made her day.  And it made me remember all the other customers whose days I've also made better, from a birthday party of 10-year old girls who created the "Donna Fan Club" complete with theme song, to the woman who felt fat and ugly and left feeling more confident about herself after hearing a bit of encouragement from me.  It made me remember that although this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life, I have learned so much about myself and other people.  My experience with Alli (the girl from today) helped me remember that though I don't exactly enjoy this job every day, I have people who appreciate what I do and care about who I am.

And that kind of happiness -- being appreciated just as I am, right now, in this moment -- is wonderful.  I have the ability to make others feel special, and that, in itself, makes me feel pretty special myself. :)