One Trait That Will Allow You to Connect With Anyone

I arrived at work a few minutes late, threw on my Apple t-shirt, and made my way onto the sales floor. I had recently been promoted as a technician at an Apple Retail Store, and I was supposed to be helping people solve issues they were having with their iPhones.

One of the other technicians was handling all of the incoming traffic in the store that day, and as soon as we locked eyes I wished we hadn’t.

He looked relieved to see me.

Too relieved to see me.

“Just the man I’m looking for,” he said. This kind of welcome is terrifying for a new technician. What I’m saying is, there’s no reason he would have been looking for me except to give me a task no one else wanted.

Photo Credit: matt buchanan, Creative Commons

“I have a young lady here who needs help with her iPhone,” he said, “She’s having issues with iCloud. She believes she might have lost all of her pictures. And she’s deaf.”

Okay, let’s unpack this.

This young lady is about to work with a new and inexperienced technician on one of the most elusive technical concepts ever because she believes she has somehow deleted some of the most vital possessions acquired in the past two years of her life and she can’t hear a word I’m going to say. Perfect.

Before I could respond, the elder technician had finished his pass-off introduction and I was shaking the girl’s hand. I smiled and kept smiling until I could figure something out. My face was numbing from all the smiling. I didn’t really know where to start.

But then something happened.

She noticed how mystified I looked and laughed a little. She pointed to my hands and the lightbulb went off.

In my hand was one of the most resourceful pieces of technology ever created. The iPad. I slid to unlock the home screen and opened up a note taking application. At the top of the screen, I typed, “Hello. My name is Kyle and I’m going to be your technician today :)”

She responded promptly.

We typed back and forth on the iPad.

This went on for nearly 45 minutes. Despite my initial reservations, it was one of the most pleasant interactions I’ve ever had in customer service.

At one point, I typed that I was excruciatingly hungry. She responded with a joke about how I must be responsible for the bite in the iconic Apple logo.

We were able fix her phone and even get her pictures back. She was thrilled.

Then she stood up and gave me a huge hug.

This interaction reminded me of something so valuable. We are all so different from one another in a variety of ways. Although our differences are incalculable, so are our similarities.

Her hearing was gone and my sign language skills were nonexistent. But with a nudge from my new friend, I was able to see past both our limitations.

Kindness. A smile. A warm hug. These are tools in our toolbox that give life to lifeless situations. It’s as if God installed in the firmware of humanity a language understood by everyone.

A language that binds us.

So next time you’re led to believe you’re too different to connect or interact with someone, I hope this reminds you you’re not.

I’m challenged by this quote from Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, “Kindness in words creates confidence. Kindness in thinking creates profoundness. Kindness in giving creates love.”

When our words are insufficient, may we always seek another way. May we always seek kindness.

One Trait That Will Allow You to Connect With Anyone is a post from: Storyline Blog