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Kind things to do at work
Workplaces run on a lot of uncredited effort. These are about noticing it out loud — which is free, faster than you think, and much rarer than it should be.
Showing 31–60 of 68 ideas
Answer the question that has been sitting unanswered
Someone asked in a channel two days ago and nobody replied. The silence is worse than a no.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Write down the thing only you know
Every job has undocumented knowledge living in one head. Writing it down is a gift to a person you will never meet.
Half an hourFreeA stranger
Learn the name of whoever cleans your office
They are in the building every day and structurally invisible, often working before anyone arrives or after everyone leaves.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Hold the lift for whoever is carrying something
Cleaners, porters and delivery staff with loaded trolleys wait for lifts far longer than anyone with free hands.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Do the thing you already said you would do
An old promise quietly expiring does more damage than a new favor does good. Finish one this week.
An afternoonFreeA friend
Answer the most junior person first
Inboxes are triaged by seniority without anyone deciding to. Reversing it once a day costs you nothing.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Make the introduction you keep meaning to make
You know two people who should meet. The introduction takes four minutes and you have owed it for months.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Leave the public toilet better than you found it
Someone cleans that room several times a day. Thirty seconds of tidying is the most direct help you can give a stranger.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Keep answering after they have left
People lose their whole support network when they change jobs, at exactly the point they most need advice.
OngoingFreeA friend
Take the notes nobody volunteered for
The admin of a meeting reliably falls to the same people. Doing it once, deliberately, breaks a pattern everybody has noticed.
Half an hourFreeA stranger
Copy their manager on the thank you
A private thank you is kind. The same words with their manager copied in can change how someone's year is assessed.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Keep the thing they told you
Being told something in confidence is the most ordinary trust there is, and it is broken casually all the time.
OngoingFreeA friend
Talk to the person on the door
Security staff stand in one place for twelve hours while thousands of people walk past without making eye contact.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Sit with whoever started this week
New starters eat alone for longer than anyone realizes, and decide how they feel about a place in the first fortnight.
Half an hourFreeA stranger
Tell someone what they taught you years ago
People who shaped how you work almost never find out. A message years later lands harder than one at the time.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Take the shift that ruins a family day
Someone on your team has small children, a religious holiday or a parent in hospital. The rota does not know that.
An afternoonFreeA friend
Stay on the call after the bad news
Redundancies and rejections are usually delivered and then immediately followed by everyone logging off.
Half an hourFreeA friend
Give the introduction, not the advice
When a friend is stuck, the name of someone who has done it is worth more than your opinion about it.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Hold the door a few seconds longer
The standard distance for holding a door is about two seconds. Extending it to six costs nothing and is noticed every time.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Bring the new person into the group conversation
A circle of people talking is physically closed. Turning your body is the whole mechanism for opening it.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
Apologize without explaining yourself
Most apologies contain a defense, which converts them into an argument the other person now has to have.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Answer the question you just solved, publicly
You spent two hours fixing something. The forum thread that nearly helped you has no answer on it.
5 minutesFreeA stranger
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 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
Ask the second question
Most conversations stop at the first answer. The interesting part is one question further in, and almost nobody goes.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Send the job to the one person it suits
Broadcasting a vacancy reaches nobody in particular. Sending it to one person with a reason changes their year.
5 minutesFreeA friend
Write the reference properly, or say you cannot
A tepid reference is worse than none, and the person asking has no way to know which one they are getting.
Half an hourFreeA friend
Say it publicly, not just in the DM
Private praise is nice. Public praise is a credential that can be pointed at, quoted and used.
5 minutesFreeA friend
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