The Power of saying good bye in everyday situation

Last week I learned an excellent life lesson in the company where I work.

But before I tell you my life lesson, I will first describe the room in the office, I’m currently sitting in. Room consists of 7 or so tables which are placed along the walls of a room. Each table sits a man with his back to the wall. When you enter the room, you appear surrounded by these tables. So, to see all of us, you have to twist your had very well ;)

Side by side to our room there is another one, in which sits our colleague, Miranda. Miranda is very friendly and usually greets every one of us at the morning as well as says good bye at the evening.

But the most interesting is how she does that. You think she just cries out “Hello” to the air and wipes out the room, so that nobody would catch her? Or comes to everyone to shake his hand? No, she does other thing. And this is my life lesson.

It was the end of a first working day in Leuven. I was tired but happy since everyone I had planned to do, was finished. I started thinking about my plans for the evening (like walking along the cozy Leuven streets or eating genuine Belgian chocolate ;)), when Miranda entered to the room. I saw, she wanted to say good bye but how would do that? Would she twist her head to say good bye several times or only to selected ones (including me? :))))).

She made a genius thing. She started saying Gooood Byyyyyyyyyyyeee, having an eye contact with everyone in this room. It was really long Goooooood Byyyyyyyyyyeeeee, not the short Bye we used to use in daily conversations. So, during the Gooooood Miranda made eye contacts with first two of our room. During the Byyyyyyyyyyyyeeeee she did that with following three guys. And when the echo of her voice was still ringing in the room, she looked at the last two ones.

After that she smiled and went out. Everyone, including me, felt himself joyful and important, since Miranda paid attention to each one of us.

For me it was a lesson of that life is perpetual process of learning. And there are so many skills, I can master. Even the skill of saying good bye to my colleagues…