Social media has enabled us to reconnect with people whom we haven't seen for many years, but it's a special pleasure when the reconnection happens the old-fashioned way---out of the blue and in person.
This week we stopped at a recreation center outside Sacramento to ask a few questions about the local community. The woman who greeted us looked familiar. "Marie? I'm Steve, we used to work together at Jupiter."
We quickly caught up, summarizing 30+ years in 30 seconds as people have learned to do in the age of Twitter [digression: I bought a few shares of TWTR last year thinking that it couldn't go lower (it did) and that someone would buy it (no one did)].
Marie reminded me that I had recommended that she look for another job---always awkward advice when coming from one's boss---but we both knew what I meant. She was an excellent worker, but the company at the time wasn't going anywhere. She could have her job as long as she wanted; for her own personal growth she should move on. When she left, I had to replace her with two people.
She said that she had always remembered that advice, and the funny thing is that I had completely forgotten that conversation.
It wasn't a bad way to end the year, to discover that I helped someone a long time ago in a way that turned out to be important. May the New Year bring such a blessing to you, too.
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