Last Thursday at school, the whole school was under a medical lockdown for two periods in the middle of the day; no one was allowed to leave the room they were in. We later discovered a much-loved teacher had collapsed, and suffered a heart attack in front of his students and fellow staff.

Unfortunately, paramedics were unable to revive him, and he passed away just after third period started. Our whole school was very shocked, and understandably a lot of students and staff were very saddened at the news.

The next day, there was a “dark cloud” over the whole school and the lessons were certainly not as cheerful as normal. A boy in my class took it upon himself to bake cupcakes for all the staff at school — 144 cupcakes in one night — plus ice them all, and leave a note saying, “It may not be a relief but just know that we are all here for you. -A message from all of your students.”

He really did restore my faith in humanity.

(We are returning to our home town after my nan’s funeral. My dad stays in her home state for a couple more days, while Mum, my brother, his girlfriend, and I are travelling together. On the second leg of our journey, we have stopped for a morning coffee in a rural town. My brother takes the opportunity to wander around, playing “Pokemon Go” and seeing what he can find. The rest of us are done fairly quickly, and I’ll be honest, I’m not really that patient; he has kept us waiting a fair while.)

Mum: “Can you please tell [Brother] to hurry up? We’re ready to go.”

(He’s over the other side of the road, lost in his phone; I call out.)

Me: *kind of grumpy, and using my usual sarcastic term for when he annoys me* “Hey, Wonder Boy! We’re ready to go!”

(After a delay, he wanders over, a smile on his face.)

Brother: “Sorry about that. I just had to make sure I caught this.”

(He shows me his phone; I begin to laugh and smile.)

Me: “That was not worth holding us up for!”

Brother: *also smiling* “Yeah, I knew you’d have that reaction.”

(The Pokemon he’d caught? A shiny Luvdisc. For those not in the know, Luvdisc is a Water-type Pokemon, vaguely based on a fish, shaped like a heart turned on its side. It’s a pretty underwhelming Pokemon in the main series games. It’s worth noting, though, that Luvdisc’s alternate, aka “shiny” colouring, is gold; basically, it is a heart of gold. And that sums up my brother. He’s a bit disorganised when he’s not at work or involved in his hobbies, but he really is a kind and well-meaning person. I just have to laugh at his laconic approach sometimes, and it cheered me up after Nan’s funeral the previous day.)

(I am with my wife, who is disabled and uses a mobility scooter, doing our weekly shopping. A rather well-to-do middle aged woman is blocking the aisle, and talking on her phone.)

Wife: “Excuse me?” *a little louder* “Excuse me?”

(Still, she just stands there.)

Me: *quite loud, but not shouting* “Hey, can we just get passed please?”

(Still, she just stands there on her phone, oblivious to us. All of a sudden, an older gentleman in an army uniform appears behind us.)

Army Man: “May I?”

(We nod and let him past.)

Army Man: *loud enough to wake the dead* “GET OUT THE BLOODY WAY!”

Woman: *startled and nearly drops her phone* “Well, I never! No need to shout!”

Army Man: *no drop in volume* “THIS COUPLE ASKED YOU THREE TIMES TO MOVE, AND YOU WERE MORE CONCERNED WITH YOUR CALL. I DIDN’T SPEND FIFTY YEARS IN THE ARMY DEFENDING THIS COUNTRY FOR YOU TO ACT LIKE A JACKA**! SO, NEXT TIME, SHOW SOME RESPECT!”

Woman: “Rude!” *walks away*

Army Man: *normally, to us* “There we go, guys!”

(I’m a young woman with short hair that I wear spiked up. Today I’ve been helping a woman who is a beginner sewist with various questions. I’ve been showing her where the fabric she wants is in the store, helping her choose between sewing patterns, telling her young daughter where the bathrooms are, helping her figure out how much fabric she needs, and finally cutting her fabric.)

Me: “Will that be all for today, ma’am?”

Customer: “Yes, and now I know who to look for when I come in next: the lady with the fluffy chicken hair!”

(Best compliment I’ve ever gotten on the job.)

I work in video game publishing as a producer. I’ve actually been in the industry for nearly a decade, but with this company for only a few years. My previous job was terrible. I worked for a guy who was awful to his employees and his customers — which meant they, in turn, were awful to us. I was working insane hours for no appreciation or recognition. He would regularly cut our pay because he “couldn’t afford us,” but then would take regular vacations to his luxury cabin in the mountains.

I stuck with it both out of a misguided sense of loyalty, and because at the end of the day I still loved the industry and wanted to be part of it, which is exactly the sort of cycle that enables awful working conditions like what I went through and worse. It didn’t help that so many people just tell you how lucky you are and how grateful you should be no matter what because they would kill to have your job, so you feel even worse about… feeling the way you do. I didn’t even notice how miserable and depressed I had been for years until I finally left and realized what an awful spiral I had been in. It was like I had existed for years in a sort of fog, and on the rare occasion I wasn’t working because I had time off, I was still unhappy because it was just looming over my whole life.

It was bad enough that I was actually scared to get back into the industry when my current company reached out about hiring me a few months later. I didn’t talk about my previous experiences. The first few months I felt like I was walking on eggshells. Whenever something went wrong, even something I wasn’t involved in, I would panic and become terrified, even though the owner was an amazingly chill, gracious, generous guy. My coworkers, who rapidly became actual friends, wondered why I was always so nervous or self-deprecating. One very bluntly asked me why I seemed to have no confidence, while praising my work. It was like being on another planet. Working with people who were themselves hard workers and good people, who valued my work and me, was literally a transformative but alien experience.

All of this came to a head when we attended a major industry conference and got invited to be guests of honor at an awards show. We weren’t up for any awards ourselves, but sitting there, surrounded by happy, excited people, listening to everyone talk about how much they loved their work just sort of overwhelmed me. I started to cry a bit because I finally realized after over a year that this was how it was supposed to be and that I was among friends.

I played off my tears as just being moved by the acceptance speech onstage at the time, but I do want everyone to know that you deserve to feel this way, too. You deserve to have work that is rewarding and that you enjoy, with people you like being around and who value you in turn.

I know I’m fortunate to do the work I do, and that a lot of people who will read this are working the jobs they have to in order to get by, and can’t do anything else right now for whatever reason. I guess I’m just sharing this to say that I hope one day you get to feel this way about your work, because you deserve to, no matter what that work may be. In the meantime, know that I’m sending good vibes to you no matter who or where you are, because I’ve been there, too.