Changing cell phones can be a pain in the neck. It has gotten much easier now that information is easily transferred between the phones and gone are the days of manually entering all your contacts or going to a kiosk in the mall to have them transferred over, but the process can still be cumbersome. I had received a new phone in the mail and needed to activate it on our Verizon account. I followed all the steps and the phone said it was activated but was not able to make ore receive calls. After turning the phone on and off and doing all the things I could think of I became frustrated with the fact that I was going to have to call in and see if they could figure it out.

Fortunately, on this particular Saturday there was no hold time, and the Verizon representative was quickly on the other end of the line. Delilah was the name of the person who would be helping me and after asking my name and pin she said, “Hi Mr. Tony, how are you today?” I was having a fine day, but I can’t say I was thrilled that I had been trying to activate my phone for the last thirty minutes, yet I still replied “Good, how are you today?” That’s when I got a little perspective. Delilah thanked me multiple times for asking how she was and then went on to say that I had made her day because not a single other person had asked her how she was doing.

I was blown away, this woman was working on a Saturday, helping people solve their phone issues, and not a single person had asked her how she was doing. I’m sure most the people that were calling in were frustrated with their device and were in no mood for pleasantries but is that any excuse? I don’t think it is. I’m sure that in this instance I’m preaching to the choir because all my readers ask people how their day is but if I’m being honest, I wonder how many times I have fallen short in this area. I would like to think I always reciprocate the response, but I can’t tell you for sure that I have.

Delilah turned out not only be pleasant but good at her job. She quickly got the phone activated and we hung up more than likely never to speak again. I was happy to get on with my day but I’m glad I was forced to make that phone call. It was a great reminder that no matter what’s going on it’s worth making time for pleasantries because you just might make someone’s day. With that “How are you?” Please tell me because I genuinely want to know.