upstartHR

Smile Week Contest

The contest is closed! Thanks to the participants. Alicia, Krista, Trish, and April all got in before the deadline and won a prize. Congratulations, ladies!

In an earlier post, I mentioned that Ashley Andrus sent me a book in honor of this “Smile Week” idea.

Seeing my niece and nephew kissing my wifes class pet rock is enough to make me smile
Seeing my niece and nephew kissing my wife's classroom pet rock is enough to make me smile!

After some Google research, I couldn’t find much about this celebratory period! However, I promised I would pay it forward, and I most definitely shall! UpstartHR is having its first contest, and it’s dedicated to the idea (that I wholeheartedly embrace) that we can all bring a smile to someone’s face with relatively little effort.

I want to know what someone has done to make you smile in the past week. It could be big or small, but I’m going to pick my favorite response and send that person a little prize. And, just to be fair to those that work in an office full of automatons, if nobody made you smile this week, but you were able to help someone else with a grin, then that would work just fine!

What happened this week that created a smile?

Did someone send you an unexpected note? Thank you for your contribution? Offer help with a difficult project? Tell a great joke? I want to know! Drop it in the comment section below and I’ll choose a winner by this Friday. Good luck!

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11 responses to “Smile Week Contest”

  1. Krista Francis Avatar
    Krista Francis

    I work at a nonprofit that provides services to adults who have intellectual and other developmental disabilities. Based in the office, I enjoy visits from the people we serve. Last week, “Marlene” who lives in her own apartement with minimal staff support, stopped by to see me with a ‘thinking of you card.’

    For the first eight years I knew her, she would greet me with a hug, then say, “What’s your name again?” It is only in the last year that she began to call me by name. So I especially loved the hand-written card letting me know she was thinking of me. It made my day!

    On top of that, when addressing it, she included the intials that follow my name on my business card: PHR. I got such a kick out of that…no wonder my name was so hard to learn!

    (I will send you a picture of her note by twitpic.)

  2. Ben Avatar
    Ben

    @Krista Fantastic story (and picture). You are going to be hard to beat!

  3. Alicia Arenas (@AliciaSanera) Avatar
    Alicia Arenas (@AliciaSanera)

    So many people made me smile last week, it’s hard to pick one.

    I went to a Swap Meet with my husband last week. It was outdoors, dusty, stinky and hot. When I say hot, I mean 100+ degrees hot without a breeze and very little shade.

    We walked past one of the vendors and Hubbie stopped in his tracks at the site of all the classic Mustang parts. He spent quite a bit of time picking up pieces and evaluating which ones would work on his Mustangs.

    While we there, a big truck, a big Texas truck backs into the vendor’s area and the driver parks it there. And, it splashes gallons of water all over the ground. We looked up and couldn’t believe what we saw. This vendor covered the bed of his truck with tarps and then filled it up with water. He created a mobile swimming pool in the bed of his truck. That made me smile.

    What made me laugh out loud was the site of his kids in their bathing suits running to jump into the truck and swim.

    What a great, creative Dad.

    1. Ben Avatar
      Ben

      @Alicia That is awesome. So many people now would love to sue someone like that for doing something the kids would enjoy. It’s good to see someone doing something nice for a lot of people just because he WANTS to. Thanks for participating… Stay tuned! :-D

  4. adowling Avatar
    adowling

    I cant being to top Krista or Alicia but, I did something today that made my coworkers smile. Sonic has happy hour between 2pm and 4pm every week day and I’m addicted to it. I took a break this afternoon and headed down to the local Sonic with only a route 44 diet dr pepper in my sights. I got there and thought about how happy it would make my coworkers if I brought them back something. I came back with flavored sodas and slushies. Those were the happiest people I’d seen all day. I one skype me from her desk to say “OMG this is so good, thank you so much” Now that made me smile.

    1. Ben Avatar
      Ben

      @April
      Hmmm… Were you aware that Diet Dr. Pepper is my second favorite drink? :-D I think that’s a wonderful example of how you can bring a smile to everyone’s face! Now if you’d only sent one up to Huntsville for me…

  5. Trish McFarlane Avatar
    Trish McFarlane

    I have a good Sonic story too that made me smile today. I was out and about today and decided to stop by Sonic for a BLT and an orange cream slush. The serer was quick and frienly. Since I drove through for my food, it wasn’t until I was back on the highway that I noticed that my BLT was perfect. It’s so rare to have the “perfect” sandwich from a fast food restaurant that I actually paused and took notice. After eating this perfect sandwich I felt really happy. So happy that I picked up my cell and called the manager. I said I know that people only call you when something did not go right with their order, but your team made me a perfect lunch. He was thrilled. We talked for about five minutes and had a great conversation. By the end of the call, he was smiling, I was smiling, and his whole team was smiling. Nice feeling.

    1. Ben Avatar
      Ben

      @Trish Hey, that’s an interesting one! My dad did that one night. He opened his burger at Wendy’s, and he said that it was just perfect (not sloppily tossed together like normal). He went up to the counter and demanded to know who had made his food. My dad’s a big guy, and the teenager that walked out was about to wet himself. :-) My dad told him that he appreciated him doing such a good job, and the guy floated his way back into the kitchen, grinning from ear to ear.

  6. Michael Long (The Red Recruiter) Avatar
    Michael Long (The Red Recruiter)

    So many smiles… so little time ;-)

    Thanks for keeping this moving Ben!

    Looking forward,
    Michael

  7. Krista Francis Avatar
    Krista Francis

    I am seeing a theme with lots of food here! It’s making me hungry.

  8. Mildred Mayo Avatar
    Mildred Mayo

    I usually carry a few Hershey’s Candy Kisses in my pocket and give one to people who do a good job or make me smile.However recently I asked a young man (teenager) to help me move a cabinet in the church hall. When he finished I said, “Here, let me give you a Kiss.” He turned white until I handed him the candy.We both smiled. ( A lady old enough to be his grandmother.)

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