The Gift of Time

Posted by: Wendyin Etiquette, gifts, thank you notes
10
Dec

Our dryer stopped working mysteriously last night. My husband took it apart today and did all sorts of diagnostic magic with it and it appeared to him that everything was working correctly. And yet the dryer would still not dry.

Finally, he called a repairman who, as a kindness to us, left another job and drove 20 minutes to our house only to find that our son had flipped a switch we didn’t even know existed and turned the heat off for the dryer! The repairman was very good-natured and chuckled about the whole situation and was even good enough to help my husband put the dryer back together. And at the end, he didn’t even charge us for his visit.

We were moved by his kindness and went out to purchase a gift certificate for him for a local restaurant that we enjoy. Then on to the note… what is a good way to thank someone for their time? You can approach it like any other gift. The only commodity people in the service industry have is their time, so it’s the equivalent of someone from a store giving away merchandise or the manager of a restaurant giving away free food.

This is how we did our note. Feel free to borrow the wording as needed!

Dan,

Thank you for coming by so promptly today to fix our dryer problem. I appreciate the generous gift of your time. Enclosed is a gift certificate to XYZ Cafe. I hope you’ll enjoy a meal on us!

Stanley Politeguy


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This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 7:47 pm and is filed under Etiquette, gifts, thank you notes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

6 comments so far

1.  Pam
December 11th, 2008 at 3:39 am

Aw! That is really cool.

Pam’s last blog post..St Paul Night Drive

2.  Maricris
December 11th, 2008 at 9:37 pm

wow! you are very compassionate and thoughtful! We don’t see many people like you anymore. I’m sure he will appreciate such gesture. Visiting here via EC drop :)

3.  Jena Isle
December 12th, 2008 at 8:19 pm

Such a sweet gesture. We need more people like you these days.

Happy blogging.

Jena Isle’s last blog post..An Angel In Each One of Us – Inspirational Story # 9

4.  Joe
December 13th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

Hey W.

Nice to see that the world is a nice place and people are out to help others. Its considerate of you to send a gift and a note.

Ginny is indeed my cousin.

Thanks for your kind words and hope you’ll stop by my blog again.

Thanks,

Joe

Joe’s last blog post..Quilt Baby H Top Finished

5.  Romancing Italy
December 14th, 2008 at 5:34 am

You must not live in a big city. That seems to be a small town gesture to me….where people are still people and the kindnesses you exchanged makes a lovely community.

Romancing Italy’s last blog post..Christmastime thoughts

6.  Wendy
December 14th, 2008 at 5:58 am

Well, it is true I live in a small town. That does make it easier since the kindnesses come at you at closer intervals.

HOWEVER, I think it we all persist and turn kindness and courtesy into something viral it can spread. Some days it’s just the persisting that is hard!

 

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