Sometimes people suck, but a lot of the time they don't

So in the past week, I have had to deal with an unusual number of people that suck. There was the person that did something terrible to one of my clients. There was the person who sent me a nasty email for doing my job. There was the person who sent a friend a nasty email for something completely petty while they were dealing with the loss of a family member (and yes, I let the nasty email sender on that one have it good).

But, I am reminded as I type this, that it is the people who do lousy things that we preoccupy ourselves with, but for each of those people, there was at least one who did something, perhaps unexpected, that was done solely to make things better for someone else. There was the co-worker who surprised me with a completely silly little gift on Friday. There was the group that went to the wake for my above friend's family member, even though none of us knew the person who had passed nor any of the friend's other family members. There were the folks who offered encouragement as I went to interview for grad school this past week (oh yeah, that happened too). There was the co-worker who really stuck his neck out to help one of my clients and my boss who backed him up when he needed it. So as I type this, I am doing my best to push out of mind those people who failed to show respect and decency in favor of recognizing those who did the little things that made my week just a little bit better.