Show Empathy and Help Others in Need

When I travel I meet a lot of different people. Some are traveling overseas for the first time, some might be going on a cruise for the first time or they are heading to the United States for a long awaited trip. I usually talk to people on my travels and I have made some great friends still to this day. When I can I try to help others when traveling and during my professional life as well.

Travel Experiences

There has been many times when I have been on trips and I’ve seen people who are struggling or need advice. During travel you will almost always get busy dealing with luggage, checking if your flight is on time, did you forget to turn the stove off at home, and so much more that goes into it. Its very exciting to be heading off to a new location somewhere around the world but it can also be stressful to a degree. Its easy to get caught up with your own items and forget that there could be others that could use your help or expertise in a situation they are dealing with. I try to be mindful as I travel to look for these opportunities to try to help someone who might just need some advice or more. There are a few times that are memorable when I’ve had the chance to help others.

We were heading off overseas on a trip to Europe and an older couple was standing in line in front of us. The husband couldn’t stand any longer in the line so he went off to find a seat. We started talking with his wife and found out they were going to distant relatives they had in Sweden and they had never been there before or have flown through London Heathrow before. We spent a few minutes giving her advice on what to see and do in Stockholm and then walked her through how best to get through Heathrow to get to her connection. She wrote down the information and thanked us for our help.

While at London Heathrow we had a very tight connection to come back to the US and the security line was over an hour long. We were stressed if we would make our connection. A gentleman in front of us was also stressed as he was trying to get to the US. I saw he had a Jordanian flag on his bag so I asked him about Jordan since we had just visited. After our talk I helped him look up what gate he needed to go to and found his flight was delayed a bit so he would be able to make it. A simple act helped relieve a bit of stress.

During our difficult stranding in Antigua in the Caribbean we met an older couple that was very nervous and were not sure what to do after we were waiting to see what would come next. They were trying to call Sandal’s to see if they could get a night as they tried to get back home. Their phone was not working so I took a look at it and it was not connecting to the network. My phone was not going through as well so I looked around the airport while they rested to see if a Sandal’s representative was there. I found a representative and got the couple to her and they were on a bus back to the hotel and very thankful for the help.

While I was dealing with a flight cancelation and stranding in The Isle of Man my parents had their flight to Amsterdam canceled as they headed on a dream river cruise. As I scrambled to find flights and hotel for myself I still worked to help my parents while they tried to get to their cruise. Thankfully they made it after some major flight changes.

We have been helped ourselves many times like in Denmark for example. We were walking in downtown Copenhagen on a quick six hour layover and were somewhat lost when a lady approached us and asked in perfect English “Can I help you?”. We let her know we were trying to see as much of her city as we could in the short time before we headed to the airport. She took the time to craft out a path for us to see the Royal Palace and so much more with a great historic information.

How can these travel experiences translate to Software Engineering?

In our professional lives time is precious and we are often very busy as we try to get everything done. We often have little time to even grab lunch between meetings and our software work. We might be juggling multiple projects at once or struggling to make a deadline. When we get tunnel vision with our own work issues we can forget our colleagues might need help and need some empathy. I always make sure my team mates know that no matter how busy I get I am willing to help and I’m just a message or office visit away. I tell them I have been on both sides of needing help and helping others. When I was a more junior developer a long while back I remember a situation where I was learning new software and a new system with a tight deadline and I needed some help and guidance. I went to more senior developers and they told me they didn’t have time to help so I needed to figure it out on my own. After working for a very long and stressful time and feeling alone I did end up figuring it out but it was painful. I never want others to feel like I did so I make sure I make time to help. I won’t do the work for them as they still need to learn but I’ll provide guidance. When we are able to lend a helping hand from buddy coding, quick advice or just an affirmation we build stronger relationships and lift up our colleagues making the team much more successful.

We also should have empathy with both our customers and those supporting us. I have had times when customers are angry and yelling at me about an outage or error in the system. I have had customers that could not stand IT professionals as they felt like we did not care about their needs. After I built relationships and showed them that we were listening and working hard to help them, those customers became some of IT’s greatest allies. Showing a bit of empathy can go a very long way to build trust and teamwork with our customers. On the other side we have Database Admins, Security Teams, Network Admins and so many others who help support us in our software projects. They are bombarded with tasks from many different sources as well. At times I might feel frustrated that they have not finished my request but I understand what they might be going through and try to have patience.

I have in the past spoken at my Alma Mater of the University of Houston-Clear Lake to freshmen about the Software Engineering field. I tell those not going into the software field to have empathy and patience with their IT colleagues as they could be under stress and working to help many other people. If we all show a bit of empathy and help others we can make our professional lives better and make some great friends in the process.

As you go about your busy work or travels I encourage you to take just a few minutes to see if there is someone who you could help. It usually only take a few minutes out of your schedule but can mean so much to others!