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Kind things to do for a stranger

For someone you will probably never see again, or will see constantly and never know. No history to draw on, which makes these the most nerve-wracking and often the most memorable.

Showing 91–113 of 113 ideas

• Tell someone their free thing was useful

  People maintaining open resources get bug reports and complaints. They almost never hear that it worked.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Say out loud that it is not their fault

  Front-line staff absorb anger for decisions made by people the customer will never meet.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Stand at the door of whatever you go to

  Most people who try a group once and never return leave because nobody spoke to them in the first four minutes.

  Half an hourFreeA stranger

• Stack it the way they would

  Clearing your table is common. Stacking it the way the person collecting it actually needs is rarer and more useful.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Say whose idea it actually was

  Ideas get repeated by louder people and absorbed by the room. Ten words of attribution puts it back where it belongs.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Check the thing before you share the outrage

  Thirty seconds of verification prevents you becoming the reason a false story reached another thousand people.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Volunteer for the boring part

  Every group has people who want to plan and nobody who wants to do the accounts or stack the chairs.

  OngoingFreeA stranger

• Leave something out for the refuse crew at Christmas

  The crew that has taken your rubbish every week for a year passes your house in the dark in December.

  5 minutesUnder $10A stranger

• Notice who has not spoken

  In most meetings two or three people never speak, and the reason is almost never that they have nothing to say.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Answer the beginner's question kindly

  The tone of the first reply someone gets determines whether they ask a second question, ever.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Tell the owner, not just the internet

  A small shop owner may never see the review. Saying it to their face is the version that reaches them.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Give to the unfashionable thing

  Money follows stories. Drainage, insurance and boiler repairs raise nothing and close more organizations than anything else.

  5 minutesMore than $10A stranger

• Tell someone their tire is going down

  A soft tire spotted in a car park is thirty seconds of mild awkwardness against a blowout at seventy.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Sit with whoever came on their own

  At any gathering there is someone standing at the edge working out how soon they can leave.

  Half an hourFreeA stranger

• Send the criticism privately and the praise publicly

  The default is backwards: people praise in private and criticize where everyone can see.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Ask the person crying in public if they are okay

  Everyone walks past. The calculation people make — that privacy is kinder — is usually wrong.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Be the easy customer at closing time

  The last half hour of a shift is when tiny inconveniences decide whether someone gets home on time.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Put a cold box out in a heatwave

  Delivery drivers, refuse crews and postal workers do forty-degree days on foot with no realistic way to stop.

  5 minutesUnder $10A stranger

• Leave a note for your mail carrier

  The person who walks to your door most days almost never hears from the people who live behind it.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger2 people did this

• Leave quarters at the laundromat

  A few dollars in coins, left on the machines, for whoever counted wrong tonight.

  5 minutesUnder $10A stranger

• Write the review for the small place

  For a business with forty reviews, one more genuinely moves the number. For a chain, it vanishes.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Learn the name of someone you see every week

  There is probably someone you have exchanged a hundred nods with and never once asked.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger

• Tell someone's manager they were good

  Complaints reach managers constantly. Praise almost never does — which is exactly why it carries weight when it arrives.

  5 minutesFreeA stranger