Going the Extra Mile

I enjoyed this piece by Paul Holmes in the New Zealand Herald recently. It is an article about an awards ceremony for Air New Zealand. There are a number of awards given, but the ones of interest are some special awards in which Air New Zealand honoured staff members whose service to the company and its customers went beyond the call of duty. They called these the "We're Impressed" awards. The people nominated had no idea they were being nominated. Their nominations came from colleagues.

The awards went to people who went out of their way to help others. There was the customer liaison specialist who volunteered to fly to America, to Fiji and back to NZ (without stopping to enjoy the places) to escort a young boy who became separated from his grandparents because of ticketing difficulties. She did it over New Years, using her holiday time and bought the boy toys to keep him occupied.

There was another lady who worked in customer services in Wellington who met a blind passenger at the airport. On her way home she saw the passenger at a bus shelter waiting for a 45 minute ride to get to her destination followed by a considerable walk. She decided to give the lady (and her children and guide dog) a ride. First she had to go home and drop of some gear, then returned to accompany the passenger to her destination.

Then there was the guy who worked at the Wellington airport. He organised for some expensive medical equipment that had been left on a plane by a passenger to be returned the following day to Auckland. For some reason the gear was not sent. Embarrassed at the mistake of a colleague, this man, on his day off, paid for his ticket and flew to Auckland with the gear, then took a taxi at his own expense to drop off the gear.

These are some pretty cool stories about people going the extra mile and making a world of difference. They sort of remind me of some of the parables Jesus might tell today regarding how we are to work and treat others.