How I wish all the bosses treat their employees as the man in this story 
did!!!
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First-Day Employee

My father had a small business, employing approximately fifteen people at any 
given time.  We pasteurized and homogenized milk from farmers each morning, 
and put it into bottles for home use and for restaurants.  We also put the 
milk into small containers for the school kids everyday.  We also made a 
wonderful little thing called homemade ice cream.  We sold all of these milk 
products, and many more, in the front of a dairy building, which had been 
fashioned into a small store with a large soda fountain.  During the summer 
months, there were rows and rows of eager tourists lined up at the ice cream 
counter, waiting for their daily indulgence of my father's most exquisite 
recipes of some twenty-seven flavors of homemade wonder.

Being such an extremely busy little store meant that the employees had to 
work fast and furious for hours at a time, with little rest.  The swarm of 
tourists never stopped and our "rush hour" lasted many hours on hot days.

I had worked for my father since I was young, as did all seven kids in our 
family.  So I had seen many new employees come and go due to the fast and 
frenetic pace. One day, in 1967, we had a new employee, Debbie, who wanted to 
work in the store for the summer.  She had never done this type of work 
before, but planned to give it her all.

On her first day, Debbie made just about every mistake in the book.  She 
added the sales wrong on the cash register, she charged the wrong prices for 
items, she gave the wrong bag of food to the wrong customer, and she dropped 
and broke a half-gallon of milk.  The torture of watching her struggle was 
too much for me.  I went into my father's office and said, "Please go out 
there and put her out of her misery."  I expected him to walk right into the 
store and fire her on the spot.  Since my father's office was situated within 
view of the sales counter, he had no doubt seen what I was talking about. He 
sat, thoughtful, for a moment.  Then he got up from his desk and walked over 
to Debbie, who was standing behind the counter.

"Debbie," he said, as he put his hand gently on her shoulder.  "I have been 
watching you all day, and I saw how you treated Mrs. Forbush."

Debbie's face began to flush and tears began to well in her eyes as she 
struggled to remember Mrs. Forbush from the many women she had given the 
wrong change to or spilled milk on.

My father continued, "I've never seen Mrs. Forbush be so polite to any one of 
my employees before.  You really knew how to handle her.  I am sure that she 
is going to want you to wait on her every time she comes in.  Keep up the 
good work."

In return for being a wise and compassionate employer, my father got a loyal, 
and hardworking employee for sixteen years...and a friend for life.

By Mary Jane West-Delgado, from  A 6th Bowl of Chicken Soup for the Soul
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Thought for the day:

On Friendship:
Adversity is the touchstone of friendship. -- French Proverb
A friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.