No Good Deed Goes "Unrewarded".

It was one February morning during the harsh winter of 2003. As a supervisor, I was showing a new staff around the job place when we stepped briefly into the front of the building.

“Oh my God!” the woman suddenly exclaimed while pointing at a car on the street. “My car is all covered up in snow…”

Expressing my sympathy, I promised to get a permit for her to pull the car into the staff parking lot. But first of all, the frozen snow had to be taken off the windscreen. Getting too concerned with the woman’s plight, I told her not to worry. Dashing back into the building, I went into a nearby kitchen, got a bucket-full of hot water and walked toward the car.



I emptied the hot water on the windscreen and saw the snow melt. But as the woman began to thank me, we both heard a strange, crackling sound. Alas, the windscreen had cracked sharply from the impact of the hot water.

The same woman now glared at me in obvious anger, “Excuse me sir…you’ve broken my windscreen…”

“Oh my God…” I muttered in shock. “I am so sorry…”

“Yeah…” the woman continued to glare at me. “I…I guess you’ll have to get me another windscreen.”

I was dumbfounded.