The Mystery of An Employee’s Gratitude

Gratitude is the quality of being thankful, having the ability to show appreciation, and to return kindness.

The following story is from my family business memoir, No Bunk Just BS (Business Sense) Timely and Timeless Truths Business School Cannot Teach You! in Chapter 3: No Bunk Employee & Teamwork Truths. No Bunk Back Story: Gratitude at Our Front Door is the poignant introduction to the chapter.

I can still recreate the peculiarly vivid scene of peering out the passenger window on the driver’s side of our 1948 maroon Buick. It was a warm day and the driver’s window was rolled down. I was leaning forward against the fuzzy beige wool upholstery, on the back of my father’s seat. As we drove up our red brick driveway approaching our house, I wondered why there was a bundle of bright iridescent colors on the red brick porch below the white louvered screen door.

“Daddy, what are all those colors?” I asked my father

“I’m not sure, let’s take a look.” He replied.

My father continued up the driveway and parked the car in front of our garage. Then my father, mother, and I curiously scrambled out of the car. To our surprise, we discovered a flock of dead pheasants perfectly laid out on our front porch. It was a puzzling and peculiar display because we did not know where they had come from, nor did we find an accompanying note.

“Al, why are there dead pheasants lying at our font door?” I remember my mother asking.

My father’s response was another question. “Remember we had a Lab-Line employee who asked me for help because his young son was suffering from a rare type of cancer?”

“Yes.” My mother replied.

I also remembered listening to my father phoning his contacts and customers at hospitals and universities laboratories, doctor offices, and businesses, to acquire an expensive experimental cancer drug for the employee’s critically ill son.

My father had given us his solution to the pheasant mystery. The employee he helped was an avid hunter. The mystery was solved. The hunter had deposited the flock pheasants at our front door to show his gratitude for my father’s generosity and kindness to purchase the experimental cancer drug that saved his young son’s life.

My family business memoir, No Bunk, Just BS (Business Sense) is available on Amazon.com.
Remember: 10% of royalties from the sale of No Bunk will be allocated to JDRF.

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