AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Time now for "My Unsung Hero," our series from the team at Hidden Brain. "My Unsung Hero" tells the stories of people whose kindness left a lasting impression on someone else. And today, we are revisiting a favorite holiday story from Stephanie Cole. About 60 years ago, when Cole was a teenager, she got her very first job. It was around the winter holidays at a department store in Los Angeles.
STEPHANIE COLE: There I was in my black skirt and my white blouse and ready to go the first day. And I had been trained but very, very quickly. And as is true in a department store during Christmas, it was just bustling. You know how it is at Christmas, when everybody's out shopping and everybody's in a hurry and all these people around. This woman comes up to me with, I think, a Christmas tree ornament she wanted to buy, and I freeze. I just freeze. All of a sudden, I can't remember anything. I can't remember how to run the cash register. I can't remember anything about the transactions. I am just absolutely frozen - and probably very close to tears. Just - I so wanted this to go right, and it was going so wrong.
She looked at me and paused and, with such a kind expression on her face, said, it's all right. Take your time. I'm not in a hurry. And that was the release. All of a sudden, I could breathe, I could wait till somebody else could help me. It was going to be OK. It made such an impression that all these years later, not only do I still remember it, but I find myself - those words coming out of my mouth on numerous, many, many occasions over the years. You know, you encounter somebody whose first day on the job or they're just having a bad day and things are really - you can tell they're in a bad place. And you can say, it's OK. I'm not in a hurry. Take your time. And it always makes the situation better. Always, always.
And so this woman, I can't really remember her face - and certainly, she's probably dead by now, given how old I was and how old she was - but she gave me that gift without knowing she gave me that gift, and it's lasted all these years.
CHANG: Stephanie Cole is from Bainbridge Island, Washington. You can find more stories of unsung heroes and learn how to submit your own at hiddenbrain.org.
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