Whatever happened to being "cruel to be kind"?

I came across a link this afternoon that made me hesitate before clicking through. It seemed a little twisted... Made me a little uncomfortable... CERTAINLY wasn't something I'd normally click...

www.operationnice.com

Operation Nice? As in "be nice to people"?

Well, I think we can all tell from my past posts that I can be a giant asshole. Short-tempered, foul-mouthed, inpatient and judgmental. That about covers it. This whole "nice" thing just seems like a pretty unsurmountable challenge.

So, I decided to try to come up with a list of nice things I've done lately:


1. When two old ladies got on the Red Line last week, I gave them my seat.
2. I replaced the toilet paper roll yesterday so Dave wouldn't have to.


Wow. I'm pathetic.

In contrast, here are the nice things people have done for me in the last week alone:


1. Three different men (different times) let me out of the elevator before them. One even said, "Ladies first," which made him sound a little dated, but it was still pretty sweet.

2. While my petite frame awkwardly struggled to carry a big Crate & Barrel box through my lobby to the elevators while blindly juggling my key fob to let me through the door, a guest visiting our building immediately asked if he could hold my package while I let myself in. And he wasn't being pervy.

3. When I bought a few things from Urban Outfitters and waited for the computer to accept my credit card, the sales girl blurted out, "Your ring is beautiful, by the way. I can't help but stare at it."

4. Even though our elevator bay serves floors 26-51 and we're all in a big damn hurry in the morning to get to work, a random girl smiled warmly at me when I halted everything to get on the elevator, instead of sighing at the fact that she had to make an extra stop during the mad rush.

5. After I wrote some copy for her, a co-worker made the extra effort to check back in with me, genuinely thank me for my work and let me know that our company gained 4 new customers in one day from my writing.

6. This weekend, my college roommate is driving five hours to my hometown just to attend one of our wedding showers. Did I mention she's doing this alone with her 14-month-old child? Amazing.

7. When I went to the pool on Sunday, all the dickheads stayed away.

8. While I was at the bar last night, a random guy was buying himself a drink next to me and saw that I was just about empty. Rather than bothering with cheesy flirting, he turned my beer bottle to see what I was drinking, ordered me another beer, paid for it, smiled and walked away. Free booze with no strings attached. The Nicest of Nice.

9. When I made a mistake (keeping that intentionally vague), my sister offered to take the blame so I wouldn't have to deal with any juvenile drama that may have resulted.

10. When I was pissed about something unrelated to that mistake, I called said sister and she actually listened, offered support and offered to step in to help alleviate the situation. WHO IS THIS PERSON? She's still a 21-year-old, slightly neurotic, slightly ADD, fairly busy individual, but she's been far less self-absorbed and pretty kick-ass lately. Don't tell her I said that. Wait, DO tell her. Let her know I'm being nice.


Okay, I'm going to stop there. Clearly, people have been nicer to me in the past week than I've never been to anyone, ever. So, maybe I'll try to tone down the attitude a bit.

Just for the next week.

During the hours of 8 and 6.

Regarding people who actually aren't begging me to curse them out.

And as long as I'm not PMS-y.

Yep, that's a good start. Baby steps!