As my job is an IT technician, whenever anyone outside of work’s computer throws a hissy fit, needs work or just plain dies, I get a call. It can be family, friends or friends of family!
But the thing is, no matter what I do, I never ask for money. Of course I’d never ask family or friends, but I suppose I could for friends of family etc. BUT, I never do. One reason is if someone asks for help, I don’t like asking for money (I am British after all and these kind of things are somewhat ‘vulgar’ don’t you know?) and the other is that people do stuff for me and never ask for payment, so why should I?
Occasionally I may get some chocolates (always appreciated), but that’s it. In fact the only time I can think I’ve had some money from anyone was when I sold a PC to my sister a few weeks ago as hers had died. But that was mainly as I was letting her have a whole new system. Another time I set up my sister-in-law’s new PC and she let me have the old one. Nothing much wrong with it, so I wiped it and it’s going to my Mum so she can manipulate as many photos as she likes, when she likes, without getting in my Dad’s way on his PC!
What made me think of this is that one of the cleaners at work has a grandson who has been give a nearly new laptop. It was bought in August by a man who passed away just before Christmas and his mother gave it to this young lad. However, it had no discs, manuals or any info about passwords so they couldn’t do anything with it! I’ve wiped it, done a new install of Windows and I’m in the process of running ALL the updates 
and installing the programmes that he will need. But she’s asked me a couple of times now how much do I want and each time I’ve said ‘nothing’. This is partially as I’m doing it at work between other jobs so it’s not really taking up my time and partially as I’ve found that it’s always a good idea to keep well in with people like cleaners and caretakers at work as you never know when you will need a favour from them!
The point of all this (Finally I hear you scream), is that it reminded me of the Cub Scout Law –
A Cub Scout always does his best,
thinks of others before himself
and does a good turn every day.
OK, that was the version I learned when I was a kid, it’s now –
Cub Scouts always do their best,
think of others before themselves
and do a good turn every day.
The bit that sprang to mind is the ‘does a good turn every day’ line. Doing a ‘good turn’ has always been a part of Scouting and even though it’s not mentioned as such in the Law and Promise (the ‘help other people’ part of the Scout Promise is probably closest), it’s still a good concept to keep to in day to day life.
Imagine how easy it would be if everyone followed this simple law! Doing your best, thinking of others and helping them – WOW what an amazing idea!
So I’ll keep doing my IT support free of charge and helping others, but if anyone wants to give me the odd choccy, I won’t say no!