Earlier this week on Wednesday was my colleague Al's birthday. And no one knew about it. Until around 10 a.m. when Al walked into the main area of our office and yelled. "Its my birthday today, and the very least I expect is to be wished".
All of us promptly wished him and joked around about the celebration. He said he'd organize lunch in the office for all of us. At around 12.30, Janice, his wife walked in with a huge tray of assorted sandwiches. The looked delicious and tasted even better. Set back my diet by a week, because I ended up trying all the various varieties.
I remembered that Al had once mentioned that he loved ice-cream and Carvel ice-cream cakes were his all-time favorite. And so, after lunch, I went to Carvel and got him an ice-cream birthday cake. We had a small cake cutting with the traditional and in our case badly sung, "Happy Birthday" before polishing off the extremely tasty Carvel delicacy.
It doesn't end there. Al has been a very nice and helpful person and was especially nice to me. I saw this as an opportunity to say "Thank You" and got him a gift that would help keep him fit. A "Fitbit".
This incident set me thinking. What Al did was something I would never have thought of doing. Self announcing one's birthday. Al is an extrovert and has the ability to engage in a conversation, a loud conversation at that with anybody, possibly even an inanimate object. And this is an awesome and useful skill. His ability to network and generate business makes him a successful business person.
And what's interesting is that being an extrovert, in addition to having a huge upside has virtually no downside. As an example in the birthday example, most of us including me, would be silent about our birthday and would think in the back of our mind about how nobody cares.
Al by announcing his birthday made us aware, and all of us were very happy and even thankful that he reminded us of something we should normally have known. All of our wishes and camaraderie made Al happy and his birthday special. All of us had a good time with the food and cake. And Al got himself a gift. How much better could it get. All by not being too shy to be an extrovert and engaging with others pro-actively.
All of us promptly wished him and joked around about the celebration. He said he'd organize lunch in the office for all of us. At around 12.30, Janice, his wife walked in with a huge tray of assorted sandwiches. The looked delicious and tasted even better. Set back my diet by a week, because I ended up trying all the various varieties.
I remembered that Al had once mentioned that he loved ice-cream and Carvel ice-cream cakes were his all-time favorite. And so, after lunch, I went to Carvel and got him an ice-cream birthday cake. We had a small cake cutting with the traditional and in our case badly sung, "Happy Birthday" before polishing off the extremely tasty Carvel delicacy.
It doesn't end there. Al has been a very nice and helpful person and was especially nice to me. I saw this as an opportunity to say "Thank You" and got him a gift that would help keep him fit. A "Fitbit".
This incident set me thinking. What Al did was something I would never have thought of doing. Self announcing one's birthday. Al is an extrovert and has the ability to engage in a conversation, a loud conversation at that with anybody, possibly even an inanimate object. And this is an awesome and useful skill. His ability to network and generate business makes him a successful business person.
And what's interesting is that being an extrovert, in addition to having a huge upside has virtually no downside. As an example in the birthday example, most of us including me, would be silent about our birthday and would think in the back of our mind about how nobody cares.
Al by announcing his birthday made us aware, and all of us were very happy and even thankful that he reminded us of something we should normally have known. All of our wishes and camaraderie made Al happy and his birthday special. All of us had a good time with the food and cake. And Al got himself a gift. How much better could it get. All by not being too shy to be an extrovert and engaging with others pro-actively.
No comments:
Post a Comment