If you were to ask 10 people to think of an adjective that best describes me, “kind” would not be a word that ended up on anyone’s list. Other 4-letter words, sure, but “kind”? Not so much.
Don’t get me wrong – I have my moments. For instance, when I see someone in and around my neighborhood who looks like they are clearly lost or confused, I will often step in to ask them where they are trying to go and point them in the right direction. It still bothers me that I sent someone the wrong way by mistake 3 summers ago. Totally accidental, Mr. Belgian Tourist, I promise!
No, I am not your classic “nice guy” who is going to go out of my way to help out a stranger or stop in the middle of the block to chat with the new neighbors (but Derek absolutely would!). Which perhaps is why it amazes me that I have fallen into an industry where kindness to relative strangers seems to be an unspoken prerequisite.
Certainly, we have been privy to this in CMEpalooza over the years, not so much when we reach out to people to take part in our sessions since they hopefully feel that this is something they benefit from on a professional level, but moreso when we need some sort of technical or specialized advice on the side. Virtually without exception, people go out of their way to be kind and offer whatever help we need. Often, their help goes far beyond what we expect. We’re paying back some of these “super helpers” (or burdening them excessively, depending on your perspective) by inviting them along for the ride during the upcoming anchor session of CMEpalooza Fall entitled, “Ask Us Anything: Live Rewind.”
(I could use this time to remind everyone to drop a postcard in our virtual “Ask Us Anything” mailbox if you need any personal or professional advice, but that’s not the point of today’s blog post)
In the last month, I was twice reminded of the inordinate kindness of my colleagues. Every now and then, I run into an issue in my non-Palooza duties that has me stumped. Perhaps I’m flummoxed by the non-response of a supporter, or a faculty member has ghosted me for weeks and weeks, or there is a new project I’m working on with some weird innuendos that I have never before encountered. It happens to all of us. Ideally, we have a rolodex (remember those?) of professional colleagues to whom we can reach out to get the answers we need. But there are times when we need specific information that only a select few people in the CME world have access to. These are the times I ran into recently.
I emailed reticently – I’m paraphrasing here – “You don’t know me, but I work in CME too and I’ve got a problem I’m hoping you can help with. Pretty please?” And you know what? Both times, these total strangers not only came to the rescue but they volunteered to talk me through all of the issues I was having and helped to identify some that I hadn’t thought about. Some of them sent me documents and templates that they had created to help keep them on track and encouraged me to use them as well instead of building something new from scratch that likely would have taken hours. Why? What was in it for them? Kindness. That’s apparently what people do around here.
“So tell me neighbor, it looks like you help getting up on that ladder. Anything I can do?”
(Nah, I’ll let Derek handle that one. Just doesn’t feel right yet.)
CMEPALOOZA 