Guest Post: A Paragon of Personing

Introducing Guest Post Monday! We hope to have contributors write guest posts on a semi-regular basis, and to kick things off, today's post is from friend of the blog and dapper gentleman extraordinaire Taylor Christensen!

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Today I'd like to talk about my friend Dan [not their actual name]. Dan kicks ass at being a person, and we can all learn from their example. In particular, gift giving/recognition of assistance.

Semi-recently, I helped Dan out a bit. I was leaving my place of employ, and I knew they'd need someone to replace me, and I knew Dan wasn't happy in their current job, so I suggested Dan and acted as a reference. It was basically no work for me, and I was happy to know that I was helping out my old boss and coworkers, which would help me when I needed my own references later on, and I was glad to help out Dan, who was in a distressingly bad job. Basically, it was its own reward.

Dan ended up getting the job, which wasn't surprising, as they were really well qualified for it. I actually felt a little bad, because I was personally unhappy in the role, but it was definitely a better gig than the one Dan left.

This is all a prelude to the main personing that happened. Dan hadn't even started the job when they sent me a note informing me that a gift was on its way to me as a thank-you for the referral. Again, this was a referral that I felt didn't require a lot of effort. Sneakily, they didn't mention their plans beforehand, as they knew I would have (rightly, to my mind) refused any gift.

I was expecting something small, like a model kit or something, like they'd given me for my birthday (which is a different post). But no, Dan decided to send me a massive LEGO Star Wars set. Here's a picture of the box, with a mini-fig for scale.

There are so many levels of excellent personing here. First, the very act. Second, the scale. This is a massive set, and if you follow LEGO at all, you know these are not cheap sets. Third, the choice of item itself. I don't know if Dan knew this, but Boba Fett (this set depictsSlave I, Boba Fett's infamous ship) is one of my most favorite Star Wars characters, and Star Wars itself is, well, to call it important to me is an understatement. Dan did know about my love of Star Wars.

I could actually do an entire series about the excellence that is Dan. Perhaps I will. I am that excited about this LEGO set.

So, much like we may aspire to be like Superman in goodness and justice, let us aspire to be like Dan in gift-giving and thoughtfulness.