Honesty is the Best Policy

Let me tell you what happened to me yesterday at lunch.

My friend Jen and I were having our daily chat in the lunchroom. It’s the one time during the day we can get away from the daily grind and just laugh and hang out. Well yesterday we suddenly realized we were shouting at each other. I yelled why are we shouting?

We came to the conclusion that it was because the tv was blaring. I decided I would take it upon myself to turn it down for everyone's sanity. I walked all the way over to the other side of the room where the tv is and was ready to climb on top of a chair to decrease the volume of the news anchors on CNN, then something deep down encouraged me to ask the randoms in the lunchroom if it was okay. I turned to the girl sitting alone at the table near the television and started to ask her, assuming she agreed, if she wanted me to turn it down….before I could finish my sentence the girl told me that she turned it up…she turned it up because of me. Apparently she can never hear the television over our lunchroom conversations. She expressed this to me very matter-of-factly; surprisingly not blatant or rude. I was stunned, and instantly apologetic.

I walked away in shock…I was mouthing, can you believe what just happened? This girl was the epitome of honesty. She dared say what no one dares to say…you annoy me and I am not afraid to tell you. The rest of our lunch was full of quiet whispers intermingled with erupting laughter because we couldn’t hear each other. We shot nervous glances over to our new acquaintance (who we never even knew existed until that moment) to make sure she didn’t hear us.

This one shocking episode in our lives was enough to keep us laughing the rest of our work day. It was especially helpful to keep us motivated at that point in time where your brain doesn’t function anymore and you just want to go home. So, I want to take a moment to thank this honest stranger for putting us in our place and giving us a good laugh.