Little Things

Little Things

“This wasn’t my idea,” Jeff said.

“I didn’t say it was, I just said this isn’t going to work. Just help me. We need to tweak it a bit more,” said Frank.

“Tweak it?”

“Yes, instead of doing it this way, let’s try pushing all the boxes over to the wall and then sorting them into categories.”

“What if Dad already has them in some kind of order that he likes?”

“Does this look like order to you? Every time he comes out here to work he comes back in cranky.”

“Fine but if he goes bonkers, just remember this wasn’t my idea.”

Two hours later the garage was organized into areas and categories. The shop area was all shop and the storage was all storage. Plus the storage area boxes were also organized by either category, or family member.

As they were standing admiring their work, Dad walked in.

“What did you boys do to my garage!” he bellowed!

“It wasn’t my idea!” Jeff said quickly.

“So, it was you Frank?” Dad said, “I love it!!”

Jeff learned a lesson that day that stayed with him all his life. He never said, “It wasn’t my idea,” again. He never took credit that was due someone else, but he also never refused to accept credit given to him that wasn’t due, as long as it wasn’t due to someone else. Consequently, everybody loved him, and he ended up wildly successful, impressively more successful than Frank actually.

Yet Jeff always gave Frank all the credit for his success, Frank never knew why.