This is the true story of a humble night clerk named George who worked in a small hotel. He was affable, kind, considerate, sincere and obliging by nature.
One dark and rainy night, there came to the hotel, an old couple. They asked for a room but no room was vacant.
The clerk could easily have said, “We do not have a single vacant room in the hotel.” But he looked at the old couple and he looked out into the dark, rainy night. He thought to himself, how could this old couple go hunting for a room in such inclement weather? So he said to them, “We do not have a vacant room in the hotel right now, but if you could wait for a while, I shall see what I can do for you.”
He called the maid and said to her, “Mary, go and fix my room. Make it tidy and comfortable. I want an old couple to use my room for the night.”
Within fifteen minutes, the maid returned, saying, “Sir, the room is ready.”
As the night clerk took the old couple to the room, he said to them, “I am taking you to a room which surely is not the best room in the hotel. But I do hope you will find it cozy and comfortable, neat and clean. Make yourself at home, and I shall send you two cups of hot tea which you may take before you retire for the night.”
Several months passed. The night clerk completely forgot this incident.
A big hotel was being built in New York — the famous Waldorf Astoria. It was built by a man named John Jacob Astor. When the time came to advertise for the post of a manager for the hotel, he said, “I do not need to advertise the post, because I have already a man in view.”
Who was that man? None other than the night clerk, who, on a dark and rainy night, had obliged the couple, Mr and Mrs Astor, when they wanted a room in his hotel. At that time, he had no idea as to whom he was obliging.
The night clerk, who worked in that small hotel, now attained instant success, only because he went out of his way to oblige people.
Dada J P Vaswani is a humanitarian, philosopher, educator, acclaimed writer, powerful orator, messiah of ahimsa, and non-sectarian spiritual leader.
