Funny, as I read this post I thought, "Not hacker news." Then I read all the comments (42 as of this writing) and still thought, "Not hacker news."
Then I realized, "Perfect hacker news." Let me explain...
I try to approach my business just as the Mexicans in the story did. Not to make money, not to change the world, not to build cool stuff (well maybe just a little), but to genuinely help people. For a business person, this thinking is difficult and counter-intuitive.
Why do I do this? Because of my first mentor (and co-founder).
He was relentless in everything he did. I learned to stay up all night, keep calling on customers, and stay with tasks until we got somewhere with them. I remember many nights with thousands of invoices spread across the carpet, watching the graveyard shift run their machines, or scanning reports on-line, looking for clues. He wouldn't quit and the reason was always the same, "These people need help and we can help them. So we do. Don't worry about how hard it is or how much time we spend, it'll all work out in the end."
Sometimes I think that this is the attitude very successful people must have. It's too easy to give up when it's for ourselves, but much harder when we know that someone else needs us to get the thing done.
The Mexicans in the story reminded me of my mentor. A great lesson for anyone in business (or not). Thank you, OP.
A wonderful story that restores my faith in humanity, just a little bit (and reminds me why coming to HN may be worthwhile, despite the nasty bickering it devolves into at times -- it still remains a good filter for finding worthwhile reading material).
It is easy to be generous when life is easy, the true test of a person's heart lies in their actions during times of personal adversity.
It is easy to lose hope, more so during hardship, when it is needed most. This story is one of those faint glimmers that may help someone make one choice versus another and start a chain of paying it forward. So, yes, thanks for sharing it OP.
This is beautiful. Too often I see business as a purely soul-less set of transactions predicated on the exchange of money where both parties need each other, but keep each other at arm's length.
Thank you for this story. I shared your sentiment when I saw this story pop up on hn but I've been struggling to find the right mindset for marketing my next project.
Your mentor's philosophy is exactly what I needed to hear.
If you live in the UK you will surely know Dave Gorman [1]. He did a TV show called American Unchained [2] where he attempted to get across America without using chain stores. In that series I saw an America that I recognise from the Americans I know and have worked with (I've never visited America). Americans are some of the most friendly, optimistic and outgoing people in the known universe. In the show he experienced many Americans going out of their way to help him, many for little or no financial gain and many lamented the decline of offline, small time, service with a smile, mom and pop America.
If I may be so bold as to offer some advice to Americans: Be careful not to lose this side of your culture, sure you've got the biggest army, the biggest economy and more burger stores than any country would ever need but what has been your real strength for the last 100 years has been your welcoming, trusting and honest nature.
Americans are some of the most friendly, optimistic and outgoing people in the known universe.
I'm going to get downvoted to hell, but I have to say this: I agree completely.
The reason why Americans believe that they are hating elsewhere is people transferring their strong dislike of American politics ("let's invade/interfere (with) countries and call it freedom") onto the American _people_. It's an emotional and intellectual shortcut.
Thank you, and may all fellow Americans take this advice to heart. When it all comes down to it, the greatness of any nation is only the sum total of the greatness of its citizens. If we lose that, we lose what's great about America.
On. The complete opposite end of the spectrum check out Top Gear's show where they visited the American South. Obviously it was meant to provoke but it does bring up a few good points. I'd link you but I'm on my phone.
I am from Europe as well and I can wholeheartedly agree with this.
I know it has become so popular to be laughing about the States over here but let me tell you something... each and every time I had to deal with people from the States over here, they were nothing but friendly and down to earth, good hearted people who enjoy and appreciate company and small talk - even more so than lots of Germans who often give you the feeling they are just waiting for you to rip them off or wave some sales contract into their face next - just because you said "hi" and "how you doing?".
For some reason, half way through this great story I suddenly found myself contrasting it with that less great story that did the rounds last July 4: the Sun-Times' Terry Savage's "There is no free lemonade" (original article expired probably with good reason, but here's a copy I found: http://bit.ly/eqIMNe) wherein author recounts her horror at finding a lemonade stand manned by two girls giving away their product for free. Despite attempts to instill an entrepreneurial spirit into the fledgling tycoons - on that day of all days - they still refuse to charge for it, whereupon she drives away disgusted and thirsty.
Is $15 for a gas can unreasonable when there is quite clearly a market? In theory a $20 labour and parts charge handed to the poor Mexican family should make both parties happy and the economy stronger (barring somewhat awkward questions of tax, right to work etc). In practice the removal of money from a human transaction created an intangible wealth, a bonding of strangers and a transfer of values that has travelled far beyond that stretch of tarmac.
Thank you for intimating that wealth should be measured in more than currency. Too often discussions of the economy focus only on measures like GDP, roughly, how much money is flying around. Clearly, measuring our wealth and the health of the economy involves much more than this.
What terrifies me is that, where capitilism has all but become the religion, people act like being selfish is somehow doing the right thing.
Best thing about "No Free Lemonade" is that she yelled from the backseat of the car to the kids about fiscal responsibility. She was being fucking chauffeured.
One of the first times I stopped to help what appeared to be a person with a flat, I got a good long (loud) lecture about how just because she was a woman, she wasn't helpless... how men should just ... if we'd all just... call the police if I don't ...
Honestly, I couldn't tell by sight at 5 feet is she was male or female. To say this response caught me by surprise is an understatement. Over the long haul, this experience did not deter me from stopping to help, I'm just a little more careful not to go bounding up like an over-excited Labrador puppy with my offers of assistance.
This is probably good advice from a security standpoint as well. Stop to help, but be situationally aware.
I am European as well, and although I completely agree that American people are the best part of the American experience (INS officials being an exceptions, because they are not humans, of course), there was this one exception the first week I came first time in my life to Boston. I was rushing to the revolving door and I saw a lady obviously some kind of professional who was rushing to the same doors. I have opened the door and hold it for her. I couldn't believe when I was slapped on my face and told she didn't need a help from a sexist pig. Fortunately, I have not gave up on being courteous and I have never repeated this experience, but this was surely weird situation.
The original Spanish expression is "Hoy por ti, mañana por mi", and I find the Golden Rule to be the closest direct application of the concept in a single expression. Interestingly, the three suggested translations of the expression I found were: "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours", "What goes around, comes around", and "Tit for tat" (http://www.proz.com/kudoz/spanish_to_english/idioms_maxims_s...). However, none of those seem to accurately convey the sentiment/ideal expressed in the original phrase.
Yep, except the "scratch" one has a slightly negative connotation of doing something just because the other one will do something in return. The Spanish phrase is a bit more positive.
I've been reading a great book called "The Gift" by Lewis Hyde about just this difference in feeling. Like you seemed to intuit, giving is very different from trading.
Last time I picked up a hitchhiker I was driving across the buttes of Platte County, Wyoming. I noticed a middle aged guy standing outside of his conversion van with what looked like an empty plastic gas can in his hand. But what made me stop was the NY tags (I'm from the northeast US). In that part of Wyoming, if you see a gas station anywhere you'd better stop and fill up if you're at half a tank or less.
Sure enough, I stop to take him to where I knew the nearest station was, and in perfect Brooklynese he says, "Am I evah glad to see you!"
When I was a teenager I worked at a local ski area parking cars. Every weekend I drove my '92 Blazer to the ski hill at 5am, clocked in, parked cars in the freezing cold, then drove a shuttle bus until the afternoon shift came on. I also worked on Christmas and New Year's Day since those tend to be big ski days.
One Christmas, I got off work around 2pm. I was driving home to open presents, have dinner, etc. when I came across a delivery van on the side of the road, hopelessly spinning its wheels in about 2 feet of heavy snow. It looked as if they had pulled over to get out of the way or check their map and gotten stuck.
I turned around and pulled up across the highway from them. "Need some help?" I shouted. The dirty, scruffy driver who was digging at the wheels with his foot glared at me, "No dammit! We're fine."
I got back in my car and sat and watched for a minute. He jumped in the van and took some anger out on the gas pedal, digging himself even deeper in. I calmly turned around, backed my car up to about 15 feet in front of his van, stepped out, and stood there with a tow-strap in my hand watching him.
Finally, he got out, gruffly accepted the other end of the strap from me, and hooked it up to his van. I got in my Blazer, set it to 4-Lo and pulled him out of the snow and onto the pavement in about 2 seconds flat.
"Thanks," he said. "No problem. Merry Christmas." I said as I rolled the snatch strap back up. Then he reached into his pocket, "Here. Take this.
"No way," I said. "It's Christmas. Get home safe."
"Absolutely not! It's wear and tear on your vehicle." he growled. Figuring I had probably hurt this guy's pride enough already, I just took what was in his hand, wished him a Merry Christmas again, and got back in my car. I threw the money on the seat next to me: three one-dollar bills.
I smiled and laughed all the way home. I made sure to drop those three dollar bills into the next donation box I saw.
I always stop to help someone, partially because I know I've sure needed it myself a few times.
Even simple things can make a person's day. I saw a guy pushing a low cc 1970's Honda motorcycle down the sidewalk in Cambridge a few months ago. I pulled over immediately and ran up to him- it looked like he was having a bad day. He said it wouldn't start after he stalled it. I'd been riding and repairing vintage Honda's myself for about a year at that point, so I was hopeful. Turns out it was just that his battery was dead and he didn't know how to use the kickstarter as he'd just started riding it. A few quick kicks and he was ready to go and now knew how to start his bike without a good battery.
When I have a non-motorcycle I try to always keep a fairly large set of tools in the trunk and anything else I could think to use. My pickup was stocked like a fallout/survival shelter. My motorcycles obviously carry less, but I always try to keep a first aid kit and a blowout kit to get someone to safety.
Hitchhiking is unfortunately one of those things that has been completely ruined by a few bad apples. It only takes 0.00001% of the hitchhikers being serial killers or rapists to sour everyone against picking up hitchikers. So few people hitchike because it is a hassle, and now it increases the likelyhood that the person hitchiking is a derelict, a postive feedback loop of national proportions.
And as for slighly offtopic comment: have you noticed how hard it is to get various road side assistance companies to actually do something useful?
Few weeks ago slightly aged tire on my not so slightly aged car not only went flat but essentially disappeared on highway (in ~150 kph). As my car was recently broken into I did't have a spare (you are not required to carry spare in Czech Republic, but you are legally required to have some way of fixing broken tires, be it spare, quick-fix-kit or road side assistance subscription). So I correctly assumed that quick-fix kit is of no use when you don't have an actual tire to fix and tried to call road side assistance company which I subscribe to that even offers help with tire replacement. They told me that they cannot do anything else than tow my car somewhere (for like an 2 EUR per km, times two, which was out of question assuming I was like 400km from home) and fix the tire in 2 business days, so I canceled my subscription and went to get spare tire by some other means. In the end my girlfriend called her parents who got me spare tire by some networking and fast talking means in like half an hour, you simply got to like rural areas and people who are always ready to help.
I've seen a few good stories. A friend's old (ok, antique) Jaguar broke down in the middle of a Jag rally up the country. He called the AA, and the guy they sent out was a collector and fellow specialist, who re-wired the loom then and there, at the side of the road. It wasn't a great fix obviously (he couldn't get into top gear, or something like that), but it meant he could keep going with the rally and get it done properly later. Absolutely amazing.
Best experience I've had was in Turkey. Broke down on a Sunday evening, tow truck saw us at the side of the road and gave us a lift to a garage. An official Toyota garage. Shit. The manager of the garage comes out, calls the chief engineer, so now we have four people's time on a Sunday evening to pay for. Turns out we need a new, Toyota-specific part, or we can't drive away, and they have it. At this point they can just name a price, we do not have a choice. It was 100 USD, all-in, parts, labour, and the tow. That price that would be reasonable on a weekday! They must have known that they could charge however much they liked, and they didn't. Much appreciated.
I remember when we were in Mongolia, an axis of our minibus broke. At three in the morning. Our local guides drove around in the second car, and managed to acquire one in an hour or so; the third guy they asked had an axis to spare. The first two guys had some pointers for finding the third guy in the first place.
You can't generalise from that, at least not internationally. I'm a member of the ÖAMTC (one of the road-side assistance non-profits in Austria) and I've had universally good experiences with them. They're very quick to arrive and know exactly what they're doing, and always friendly. And I've called them out for pretty minor things - I suck at fixing cars myself.
Interestingly, Richard Feynman tells a similar story. I think it's in "Why do you care what other people think?" It also is depicted in Matthew Broderick's movie "Infinity."
He was working at Los Alamos on the bomb, and his wife was dying in hospital. He had to make long drives back and forth to visit his wife. He picks up a hitchhiker, a Mexican who speaks no English. IIRC, he rambles on and tells the Mexican about his wife and how she's sick, but the Mexican can't understand him. The crux of the story is when they break down. They aren't in danger of dying in the desert, they get to a gas station, where the Mexican suddenly speaks perfect English and explains how to fix the car so that Feynman can make it to see his wife in time.
Feynman deduces that the Mexican pretending to speak no English is actually a spy, and asks him why he broke his cover. The Mexican answers that he was moved by Richard's plight.
My wife, Arlene, was ill with tuberculosis--very ill indeed. It looked as if something might happen at any minute, so I arranged ahead of time with a friend of mine in the dormitory to borrow his car in an emergency so I could get to Albuquerque quickly. His name was Klaus Fuchs. He was
the spy, and he used his automobile to take the atomic secrets away from Los Alamos down to Santa Fe. But nobody knew that.
The emergency arrived. I borrowed Fuchs's car and picked up a couple of hitchhikers, in case something happened with the car on the way to Albuquerque. Sure enough, just as we were driving into Santa Fe, we got a flat tire. The two guys helped me change the tire, and just as we were leaving Santa Fe, another tire went flat. We pushed the car into a nearby gas station.
The gas station guy was repairing somebody else's car, and it was going to take a while before he could help us. I didn't even think to say anything, but the two hitchhikers went over to the gas station man and told him the situation. Soon we had a new tire (but no spare--tires were hard to
get during the war). About thirty miles outside Albuquerque a third tire went flat, so I left the car on the road and we hitchhiked the rest of the way. I phoned a garage
to go out and get the car while I went to the hospital to see my wife.
Earlier this year, I lived in Guatemala studying Spanish, climbing volcanos and motorcycling around. At one point a friend of mine visited me from Mexico for a couple weeks and we decided we'd rent a car and drive around the country. It's much safer than the busses, and way more freedom.
We were going between villages in the mountains that were -- to say the least -- rural. Most of them probably had thirty or forty people living in them and the only access was a single-lane dirt road barely passable by even four-wheel drive vehicles. The workers in the villages rely on hitchhiking or private "taxis" to get to work. Those with trucks generally pick up anyone on the side of the road who's going in the same direction and flags them down.
Having been the hiker myself on some similar Guatemalan roads previously, I discovered that it's customary to ask the driver how much you owed them for the trip at the end and then pay them (depending on the length of the trip) maybe 5 or 10 quetzales -- I think at the time that was about $1.00 - $1.20 USD or so.
My friend and I got in the habit of picking up everyone we saw and dropping them off at their location; por gratis. Most of them didn't speak Spanish (this was rural enough that nearly everyone spoke some mayan dialect) so it was always a bit of a silly experiment trying to explain that I didn't them to pay.
I like to think that maybe we made a couple people's days and they were able to put a little more food on their table (or heck, beer in their belly).
More generally, I make a point to pick up hitchhikers when I have time -- which sadly is less and less frequent these days. Even if it's a risky proposal, I've been on the other side of the equation one too many times in my life not to try and return the favor.
That story reminded me of my life a while back. Hope you guys don't mind me sharing.
I was in a peculiar situation with regard of my H1-B (this is long time ago) visa. I was not legal to work, but I was legal to stay. I was in this situation for more than a year.
I lost everything, literally. I ran out of savings. No programming shops would take me, not even Chinese restaurants would take me.
Guess who gave me a job? I worked for this mom-and-pop car shop run by Mexican family. I changed air filters, brake pads, electronic window motors until my visa resolved itself. They paid $1 above minimum wage, they feed me lunch (their home-made salsa was delicious) and in return I maintained their Windows PC.
When my visa resolved, the dad just bought a new warehouse as part of expanding his business. It was a great year for both of us.
Perhaps my favorite good act to do is to help people push their car when they need it. It's dumb, really, but having grown up in the south, people are just hospitable that way.
It generally doesn't take much to do, it helps traffic, and at least for me, it makes me feel good about myself. Besides, it always irks me when I see someone trying to push their car out of traffic and nobody else is helping. Especially considering the traffic implications around here, when somebody in the road makes an already bad situation worse.
I've been late because of it, but to date, I've never had anybody hold it against me that I was late because I helped somebody move a car.
You can see this in action almost every day in New York City. On a crowded subway car, if a pregnant woman or very old person gets on the car it is almost always a Hispanic male who jumps up to offer their seat, even if it means standing up for the rest of a long commute.
As a middle aged person who grew up in Houston, I can remember having these basic values (golden rule/help other people) drilled into me by parents/teachers in the 70's.
Somewhere along the way urban life seems to have washed those values away.
I've had a very similar experience, its uncanny. I was in my 20s at the time and I was trying to fix a charging problem on this old truck I had. I decided to take it for a test ride to see if the problem is fixed. Of course it isn't and the battery dies while I am in the middle of an intersection. I have jumper cables so I pop the hood and I am standing there holding the cables trying to get someone to stop. I got people flipping me off, honking their horns, etc, no one stops.
A Mexican guy stops, family in the car, pops his hood and gives me a jump. I didn't get a chance to talk to him because I had to get the truck out of the road, but I did say thanks.
Ever since that incident I have been paying it forward. I've probably helped dozens of people since then who were broke down because that guy chose to help me. It's nice to see there are others out there paying it forward as well.
I try to give rides to hitchhikers when it's especially dark and lonely and cold out. I ride a motorcycle, and people usually aren't interested in a ride with no helmet unless it's really dark, lonely and cold.
Used to help people on the side of the road a lot, but a childhood friend was hit by a truck & killed just recently while helping someone change a flat and I almost broke my ankle in the dark another night when I pulled over to help, and couldn't walk right for months. I haven't been pulling over as much since. :(
On a tangent, things like that ankle injury that really remind me how fragile we are. There was a while there I thought I had permanently injured it.
This story is touching. If you want to do something worthwhile today, take a second and call your Senator and tell them to support the dream act. It's a big issue for all immigrants, not just Mexicans.
The vote is most likely this week and every call counts.
When I was a teenager in the 70's I used to hitchhike around town whenever I got tired of waiting for the bus. Hard to imagine today. Invariably the guys (never a woman) who would pick me up had been in military service, and had to hitch a ride into town whenever they got base leave. Sympathy requires understanding, a little wealth can breed ignorance.
[+] [-] edw519|15 years ago|reply
Then I realized, "Perfect hacker news." Let me explain...
I try to approach my business just as the Mexicans in the story did. Not to make money, not to change the world, not to build cool stuff (well maybe just a little), but to genuinely help people. For a business person, this thinking is difficult and counter-intuitive.
Why do I do this? Because of my first mentor (and co-founder).
He was relentless in everything he did. I learned to stay up all night, keep calling on customers, and stay with tasks until we got somewhere with them. I remember many nights with thousands of invoices spread across the carpet, watching the graveyard shift run their machines, or scanning reports on-line, looking for clues. He wouldn't quit and the reason was always the same, "These people need help and we can help them. So we do. Don't worry about how hard it is or how much time we spend, it'll all work out in the end."
Sometimes I think that this is the attitude very successful people must have. It's too easy to give up when it's for ourselves, but much harder when we know that someone else needs us to get the thing done.
The Mexicans in the story reminded me of my mentor. A great lesson for anyone in business (or not). Thank you, OP.
[+] [-] snth|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shiven|15 years ago|reply
It is easy to be generous when life is easy, the true test of a person's heart lies in their actions during times of personal adversity.
It is easy to lose hope, more so during hardship, when it is needed most. This story is one of those faint glimmers that may help someone make one choice versus another and start a chain of paying it forward. So, yes, thanks for sharing it OP.
[+] [-] antareus|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DanielRibeiro|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonathanwallace|15 years ago|reply
Your mentor's philosophy is exactly what I needed to hear.
[+] [-] jaydavids|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dazzawazza|15 years ago|reply
If I may be so bold as to offer some advice to Americans: Be careful not to lose this side of your culture, sure you've got the biggest army, the biggest economy and more burger stores than any country would ever need but what has been your real strength for the last 100 years has been your welcoming, trusting and honest nature.
good luck.
[1] - http://www.davegorman.com/ [2] - http://www.davegorman.com/projects_america_unchained.html
[+] [-] nodata|15 years ago|reply
I'm going to get downvoted to hell, but I have to say this: I agree completely.
The reason why Americans believe that they are hating elsewhere is people transferring their strong dislike of American politics ("let's invade/interfere (with) countries and call it freedom") onto the American _people_. It's an emotional and intellectual shortcut.
[+] [-] maguay|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] random42|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lylejohnson|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SeamusBrady|15 years ago|reply
Look at the Irish people (generally a decent lot) and the Irish State (mostly a basket case morally and financially).
People are great. I love people, including nearly all the American I have met. I have yet to meet a state I can respect.
[+] [-] yellowbkpk|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kahawe|15 years ago|reply
I know it has become so popular to be laughing about the States over here but let me tell you something... each and every time I had to deal with people from the States over here, they were nothing but friendly and down to earth, good hearted people who enjoy and appreciate company and small talk - even more so than lots of Germans who often give you the feeling they are just waiting for you to rip them off or wave some sales contract into their face next - just because you said "hi" and "how you doing?".
[+] [-] dtf|15 years ago|reply
Is $15 for a gas can unreasonable when there is quite clearly a market? In theory a $20 labour and parts charge handed to the poor Mexican family should make both parties happy and the economy stronger (barring somewhat awkward questions of tax, right to work etc). In practice the removal of money from a human transaction created an intangible wealth, a bonding of strangers and a transfer of values that has travelled far beyond that stretch of tarmac.
[+] [-] tambler|15 years ago|reply
What terrifies me is that, where capitilism has all but become the religion, people act like being selfish is somehow doing the right thing.
[+] [-] emehrkay|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mohawk|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noonespecial|15 years ago|reply
Honestly, I couldn't tell by sight at 5 feet is she was male or female. To say this response caught me by surprise is an understatement. Over the long haul, this experience did not deter me from stopping to help, I'm just a little more careful not to go bounding up like an over-excited Labrador puppy with my offers of assistance.
This is probably good advice from a security standpoint as well. Stop to help, but be situationally aware.
[+] [-] mcepl|15 years ago|reply
Greetings over the Pond!
[+] [-] run4yourlives|15 years ago|reply
1. Pissed at her flat. 2. Terrified that some guy stopped to "help" her.
Then again, she could just be a bitch. They do exist.
I wouldn't alter your behaviour though because of this type of reaction. Life is too short to suffer fools.
[+] [-] mcantor|15 years ago|reply
Why did you feel obligated to stay for the entire lecture?
EDIT: I'm very interested to know why the downvotes are happening.
[+] [-] bobf|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nagrom|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nanexcool|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maguay|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djtumolo|15 years ago|reply
Beautiful OP as well.
[+] [-] ptn|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wyclif|15 years ago|reply
Sure enough, I stop to take him to where I knew the nearest station was, and in perfect Brooklynese he says, "Am I evah glad to see you!"
[+] [-] arebe|15 years ago|reply
One Christmas, I got off work around 2pm. I was driving home to open presents, have dinner, etc. when I came across a delivery van on the side of the road, hopelessly spinning its wheels in about 2 feet of heavy snow. It looked as if they had pulled over to get out of the way or check their map and gotten stuck.
I turned around and pulled up across the highway from them. "Need some help?" I shouted. The dirty, scruffy driver who was digging at the wheels with his foot glared at me, "No dammit! We're fine."
I got back in my car and sat and watched for a minute. He jumped in the van and took some anger out on the gas pedal, digging himself even deeper in. I calmly turned around, backed my car up to about 15 feet in front of his van, stepped out, and stood there with a tow-strap in my hand watching him.
Finally, he got out, gruffly accepted the other end of the strap from me, and hooked it up to his van. I got in my Blazer, set it to 4-Lo and pulled him out of the snow and onto the pavement in about 2 seconds flat.
"Thanks," he said. "No problem. Merry Christmas." I said as I rolled the snatch strap back up. Then he reached into his pocket, "Here. Take this.
"No way," I said. "It's Christmas. Get home safe."
"Absolutely not! It's wear and tear on your vehicle." he growled. Figuring I had probably hurt this guy's pride enough already, I just took what was in his hand, wished him a Merry Christmas again, and got back in my car. I threw the money on the seat next to me: three one-dollar bills.
I smiled and laughed all the way home. I made sure to drop those three dollar bills into the next donation box I saw.
[+] [-] hkr|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tibbon|15 years ago|reply
Even simple things can make a person's day. I saw a guy pushing a low cc 1970's Honda motorcycle down the sidewalk in Cambridge a few months ago. I pulled over immediately and ran up to him- it looked like he was having a bad day. He said it wouldn't start after he stalled it. I'd been riding and repairing vintage Honda's myself for about a year at that point, so I was hopeful. Turns out it was just that his battery was dead and he didn't know how to use the kickstarter as he'd just started riding it. A few quick kicks and he was ready to go and now knew how to start his bike without a good battery.
When I have a non-motorcycle I try to always keep a fairly large set of tools in the trunk and anything else I could think to use. My pickup was stocked like a fallout/survival shelter. My motorcycles obviously carry less, but I always try to keep a first aid kit and a blowout kit to get someone to safety.
[+] [-] krschultz|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfox|15 years ago|reply
Few weeks ago slightly aged tire on my not so slightly aged car not only went flat but essentially disappeared on highway (in ~150 kph). As my car was recently broken into I did't have a spare (you are not required to carry spare in Czech Republic, but you are legally required to have some way of fixing broken tires, be it spare, quick-fix-kit or road side assistance subscription). So I correctly assumed that quick-fix kit is of no use when you don't have an actual tire to fix and tried to call road side assistance company which I subscribe to that even offers help with tire replacement. They told me that they cannot do anything else than tow my car somewhere (for like an 2 EUR per km, times two, which was out of question assuming I was like 400km from home) and fix the tire in 2 business days, so I canceled my subscription and went to get spare tire by some other means. In the end my girlfriend called her parents who got me spare tire by some networking and fast talking means in like half an hour, you simply got to like rural areas and people who are always ready to help.
[+] [-] ZoFreX|15 years ago|reply
Best experience I've had was in Turkey. Broke down on a Sunday evening, tow truck saw us at the side of the road and gave us a lift to a garage. An official Toyota garage. Shit. The manager of the garage comes out, calls the chief engineer, so now we have four people's time on a Sunday evening to pay for. Turns out we need a new, Toyota-specific part, or we can't drive away, and they have it. At this point they can just name a price, we do not have a choice. It was 100 USD, all-in, parts, labour, and the tow. That price that would be reasonable on a weekday! They must have known that they could charge however much they liked, and they didn't. Much appreciated.
[+] [-] eru|15 years ago|reply
And Mongolia has almost no population density.
[+] [-] pmjordan|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raganwald|15 years ago|reply
He was working at Los Alamos on the bomb, and his wife was dying in hospital. He had to make long drives back and forth to visit his wife. He picks up a hitchhiker, a Mexican who speaks no English. IIRC, he rambles on and tells the Mexican about his wife and how she's sick, but the Mexican can't understand him. The crux of the story is when they break down. They aren't in danger of dying in the desert, they get to a gas station, where the Mexican suddenly speaks perfect English and explains how to fix the car so that Feynman can make it to see his wife in time.
Feynman deduces that the Mexican pretending to speak no English is actually a spy, and asks him why he broke his cover. The Mexican answers that he was moved by Richard's plight.
[+] [-] bemmu|15 years ago|reply
The emergency arrived. I borrowed Fuchs's car and picked up a couple of hitchhikers, in case something happened with the car on the way to Albuquerque. Sure enough, just as we were driving into Santa Fe, we got a flat tire. The two guys helped me change the tire, and just as we were leaving Santa Fe, another tire went flat. We pushed the car into a nearby gas station.
The gas station guy was repairing somebody else's car, and it was going to take a while before he could help us. I didn't even think to say anything, but the two hitchhikers went over to the gas station man and told him the situation. Soon we had a new tire (but no spare--tires were hard to get during the war). About thirty miles outside Albuquerque a third tire went flat, so I left the car on the road and we hitchhiked the rest of the way. I phoned a garage to go out and get the car while I went to the hospital to see my wife.
Arlene died a few hours after I got there.
[+] [-] samfoo|15 years ago|reply
We were going between villages in the mountains that were -- to say the least -- rural. Most of them probably had thirty or forty people living in them and the only access was a single-lane dirt road barely passable by even four-wheel drive vehicles. The workers in the villages rely on hitchhiking or private "taxis" to get to work. Those with trucks generally pick up anyone on the side of the road who's going in the same direction and flags them down.
Having been the hiker myself on some similar Guatemalan roads previously, I discovered that it's customary to ask the driver how much you owed them for the trip at the end and then pay them (depending on the length of the trip) maybe 5 or 10 quetzales -- I think at the time that was about $1.00 - $1.20 USD or so.
My friend and I got in the habit of picking up everyone we saw and dropping them off at their location; por gratis. Most of them didn't speak Spanish (this was rural enough that nearly everyone spoke some mayan dialect) so it was always a bit of a silly experiment trying to explain that I didn't them to pay.
I like to think that maybe we made a couple people's days and they were able to put a little more food on their table (or heck, beer in their belly).
More generally, I make a point to pick up hitchhikers when I have time -- which sadly is less and less frequent these days. Even if it's a risky proposal, I've been on the other side of the equation one too many times in my life not to try and return the favor.
[+] [-] didip|15 years ago|reply
I was in a peculiar situation with regard of my H1-B (this is long time ago) visa. I was not legal to work, but I was legal to stay. I was in this situation for more than a year.
I lost everything, literally. I ran out of savings. No programming shops would take me, not even Chinese restaurants would take me.
Guess who gave me a job? I worked for this mom-and-pop car shop run by Mexican family. I changed air filters, brake pads, electronic window motors until my visa resolved itself. They paid $1 above minimum wage, they feed me lunch (their home-made salsa was delicious) and in return I maintained their Windows PC.
When my visa resolved, the dad just bought a new warehouse as part of expanding his business. It was a great year for both of us.
[+] [-] bmelton|15 years ago|reply
It generally doesn't take much to do, it helps traffic, and at least for me, it makes me feel good about myself. Besides, it always irks me when I see someone trying to push their car out of traffic and nobody else is helping. Especially considering the traffic implications around here, when somebody in the road makes an already bad situation worse.
I've been late because of it, but to date, I've never had anybody hold it against me that I was late because I helped somebody move a car.
[+] [-] hieronymusN|15 years ago|reply
As a middle aged person who grew up in Houston, I can remember having these basic values (golden rule/help other people) drilled into me by parents/teachers in the 70's.
Somewhere along the way urban life seems to have washed those values away.
[+] [-] ngsayjoe|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jmeyers|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sliverstorm|15 years ago|reply
Used to help people on the side of the road a lot, but a childhood friend was hit by a truck & killed just recently while helping someone change a flat and I almost broke my ankle in the dark another night when I pulled over to help, and couldn't walk right for months. I haven't been pulling over as much since. :(
On a tangent, things like that ankle injury that really remind me how fragile we are. There was a while there I thought I had permanently injured it.
[+] [-] mikesabat|15 years ago|reply
The vote is most likely this week and every call counts.
http://reformimmigrationforamerica.org/blog/make-dream-a-rea...
To tie it back to Hacker News, you'll also be using my company's technology to complete the call.
[+] [-] Hubbert|15 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] T_S_|15 years ago|reply