The just because gift

I'm fortunate to like my job; sure, there's times it's not enjoyable for one reason or another, but generally it's a good job, I'm good at it, the company is on-the-ball, fairly generous to the team and the individuals I work with are good people. It's the trucking, transport and logistics industry and is fast-paced and brutal at times, but overall I'm happy.

My role is client-facing and I'm lucky to have complete autonomy. I spend a lot of time with clients delivering presentations of the features and benefits of the company to potential new ones, and consolidating relationships with the existing ones. The whole premise of my role is to win business for the company and I do that through giving, meaning I show value to the client and the operations team deliver it. It's often professionally rewarding, but yesterday I received a reward of another nature.

This week I visited a client who was unable to see me prior to Christmas due to increase business commitments at that time, we met at a café. We spoke about what we did over the break, about how her business rounded out the year and what's in-store this year - critical information for me to work with and potentially gain more business - and generally chatted about life in general. We'd ordered our second coffee when she delved into her handbag and produced an envelope which she handed to me saying, this is for you, I know how hard you work and what you do to support my business and it's a small thank you.

I took it, opened the envelope, saying the usual, you didn't have to dialogue, and that's when my jaw dropped...She had handed me a $400AUD gift voucher for a hardware/homeware store I spend a lot of time at. I'm not one to accept gifts well, I feel awkward, and this was far too much! I said so, and that her generosity was well over the top. She simply grinned and said, you deserve it.

I accepted that gift, to do so would have devalued her generosity and I didn't want to do so. We parted ways and I headed back to the office.

I spoke to the operations team there, told them what had happened and that I wanted to buy each of them something with the gift card. A half hour later I had a list and off I went to the hardware store to pick up some gardening stuff for one, tools for another and some potted plants for the State Managers office. I picked up a couple things for myself also and it all felt pretty good.

Generosity is a funny thing as it can be genuine or have an agenda. In this case it was genuine and that made it pretty special. Have you ever received an unexpected gift like this? It's a nice feeling I think, for the giver and receiver as well. Feel free to tell me about your own unexpected gift experience if you have one.