10 Stories That Made My Day in March

“I was getting chlebíček at Libeřské Lahůdky this morning and there was this guy in his sixties, who spoke Czech but I could tell he wasn’t a native speaker. And his positive attitude and how friendly he was with the staff made me feel super good too. When I was leaving the store, he was there first, to smile and hold the door for me. And I was double happy because I didn’t have to touch the door handle 😀”

“My patient thanked me for my human approach. He said he divides doctors in two categories. The ones who share and ones who don’t. And that I was only the second doctor he met, who belongs to the first category. It made me happy 🙂”

“I work in customer service. The other day, I was on the phone with a woman who desperately needed help, and I was able to get her what she needed, while also calming her down (she was crying). She told me I was the nicest person she had spoken to all day. We had a sweet moment on the phone together, which doesn’t happen much in customer work.”

“The past week has been a bit of a panic. With schools and universities shutting down, I have been living in fear of the coronavirus. Like a lot of people at the moment, it is not the virus that scares me, but the effects. I was for a week terrified of the possibilities of getting deported with the situation at hand, or losing my flat. While I was in the process of trying to make some plan Bs, not sleeping, and of course just dealing with the anxiety, I saw like three different emails come in from different staff people from my school. At this time, it was midnight. For me, this was extremely calming, but it made me feel not alone through a lot of this chaos.

Seeing those emails, so late, I knew that the staff were all working so hard to try to help us non českys with the translating of information, with calming words. It made me feel so good to know that they were understanding the situation of a lot of foreign students, and it was so nice to see them trying so hard to help. The next day, (or a few days later, I don’t know how time works right now) the staff set up a meeting to give information. I saw on many of their faces that they had also not been sleeping. They seemed tired, but they were trying so hard to be calm and relaxed to help all of us. They did their best to answer questions and to inform.

I appreciate from them all of their hard work, all of their caring, and truly their passion. They are amazing people and I walked out of that meeting much more secure. For me, it made my day and just drastically reduced my overall anxiety levels.”

“When me and Dušan came to my sister’s place in Austria where we will spend the quarantine, we found this. Not only does she let us live at her place, but also she put together some “welcome snacks” for us 😊”

Marlene is an Austrian singer-songwriter. To learn more about her, follow her on Intsgram.