Glancing at the time and cringing, she took a deep breath and stepped inside. Work isn’t a place that tends to give a lot of chances when you run late almost every day. When confronted about her tardiness, she told the owner that he must hire someone new who wouldn’t be late. But his response left her in tears.
Veronica Solis loved her job working at Kids’ Kollege Learning Center. She was a passionate cook that had fallen on difficult times — a recent diagnosis at the hospital had left her reeling. She knew she would have to tell her boss that she was fighting a dread disease, but she didn’t want to lose her job.
Alex, the owner of Kids’ Kollege Learning Center and Solis’s boss, believes that when someone is loyal and hard-working they should be rewarded. He loves his business and respects his employees. But now, he was put in a difficult position. Solis had suddenly started arriving at work late every day. He had to think long and hard about his decision.
Solis underwent treatment and she finally walked away with a clean bill of health. She had beaten cancer, but now she had another problem. She was still clocking in late to work nearly every day. That’s when Alex knew he’d had to have the talk with her. But he never anticipated this reaction from his employee.
On the phone, Alex gently told her “It’s really important to not be late to work as it is our responsibility to be to work on time.” The line went silent for a few seconds. “Veronica? Are you there?” Then, Alex was taken aback when he heard her sobbing. Why did simply being told that she must be on time have such an effect on her though? Alex could never have known.
Solis, knowing that it was now or never, explained everything. She did not have a car, in fact, she carpooled with her mother every day, but that would soon be coming to an end. Her mother had moved out of state and it was any guess how Solis would get to work now. She told Alex that he’d be better off finding someone to replace her — someone who could be relied upon to come to work on time.
Alex felt pity for Solis, but at the end of the day, his life’s work and business would ultimately come first. He couldn’t afford for his employees to come in late every day. With precious time lost in the morning for meal prep, he worried that Solis wouldn’t be able to perform her duties. Then, he began to hatch a cunning plan.
Alex organized a camera crew and told Solis that they were shooting some footage of the daycare for an advert in an elaborate ruse to fool her. Alex began to record. He stood outside his business and explained why he had to do what he was doing. “Why I’m doing this is I’ve been blessed in my life,” he says.
Keeping up the ruse wasn’t difficult as Alex showed the camera crew around the daycare, eventually finding Solis hard at work in the kitchen rolling out fresh enchiladas for the children’s lunch. “So this is our kitchen area,” Alex explains. “We cook all our meals here fresh, daily… and this is my remarkable cook.”
Alex had successfully managed to trick Solis into thinking they were filming a commercial for the daycare — she didn’t seem to suspect a thing. Then he began to ask her a question in front of the camera. “Why is Kids Kollege the best?” Solis didn’t hesitate. She was proud to tell the world that she loved her job. Then, Alex asked her to step outside.
Alex jokingly told her she had no more excuses for being late as he pointed at the car parked outside. He reminded her that she had told him to go ahead and hire someone else — someone who would be able to reliably get to work. He wasn’t interested in doing that. Instead, he wanted to look out for his own.
Solis was surprised and shocked that her boss would do something so huge for her – he had taken money out of his own pocket to buy her a reliable car so that she would be at work on time! She looked at the car and then back at Alex in complete disbelief. Then, tears started to roll down her cheeks. She couldn’t thank him enough!
“It is not every day that we can do something like this for other people, but right now that I am able to, why not do it for someone that cares for you and takes good care of your business? It’s because we love her, and she has inspired my life to never give up and always work hard,” Alex explains.
“The video pretty much sums it up,” Alex explains in the video’s caption. “But I wanted to do this so that maybe someone out there will be touched and also continue this chain of pay it forward. I wanted to surprise my employee Veronica Solis with a new car. She is a cancer survivor and has inspired my life to never give up and always work hard.”
Alex recalls how it felt when he’d made that difficult call to Solis to address her recent tardiness. “She started crying and she said for me to look for another employee because she did not have a car and had no one to give her a ride. After hanging up with her, I felt in my heart to just go buy her a car.” But how did netizens react to Alex’s kind gesture?
Since Alex uploaded the video to Youtube, it has been viewed by over three million people! One commenter wrote: “If I’m ever lucky enough to own my own business, I hope to be the kind of boss you are. I feel if you take care of your employees, they will take care of you. Such an awesome gesture this was!” But not all comments were positive…
A few bitter viewers complained that the car Alex bought for Solis wasn’t new. Some said that perhaps Solis had secretly wanted to resign and made the story about her transportation issues up, but we’re sure this wasn’t the case. Almost all comments on the original Youtube video were supportive of Alex and his deserving employee.
Most comments were in a similar vein, praising Alex for his kindness: “You, my friend, are a great example of giving to others and doing the right thing for those in need. What an awesome thing you did. God BLESS YOU BROTHER,” one netizen wrote. Others said that seeing Solis’s reaction to her gift was priceless.
We can all take a page from Alex’s book – when Solis confided in him about her problems, he knew he had to help her. Most other employers would have simply let Solis go, even though she had been a loyal member of staff for years. But Alex found a way to look out for his business’ interests as well as his employees’.
Would you have done what Alex did? Even though he has received a lot of praise, he remains humble. He believes in paying it forward to make the world a better place for everyone. So, even if it’s a just small gift or kind gesture, always remember to be kind. Kindness makes the world go around, after all!
