This is a true story. It doesn’t have anything to do with my regular beat, writing about trading, and studying business, and emini education, but I think it’s worth telling.
In Vancouver, there is a coffee shop, one of hundreds along the east end of Main St. It’s open long days, and long hours, and most of the staff are students, starving artists, single moms, but all young up and comers.
Traffic is brisk and the customers are a mixture of young and old from many different directions in life. This isn’t a heavily branded chain store. It’s typical of the dozens of independents. Newspapers are free to read, organic everything, old wooden floors, sidewalk tables under a canopy, a great place to hang out.
On Saturday last, the crew chief and her assistant arrived at 05:30 for a 6 am opening. Shortly after 6 a young man from Newfoundland came in and provided some entertainment for a few minutes with a story or two in his native tongue. Everyone was smiling and laughing and enjoying themselves.
The morning became a routine shift. The regulars came and went, some new faces appeared, and it stayed busy. An older gentleman, quiet and reserved came in. He could have been a professor, maybe a producer of some kind, and he had an air of dignity about him. He doesn’t come in often, but the staff remember him.
When he left, he handed the young lady at the till a five dollar bill, tightly rolled, like a cigarette. It went in the tip jar, they exchanged a thank you and good-byes and he left.
The early shift ends at 2 pm, and as is the custom, the crew get to split the contents of the jar. You can imagine the surprise on their faces when they unrolled the five dollar tip and found a hundred dollar bill inside. For the young students, it was a wonderful act of kindness.
To the gentleman, from a father and his daughter, Thank You, and may God Bless you.
