My coworker brought me coffee every Monday for a month. I thought she was just being nice. When she quit, I found a note on her PC screen.
It said: “Things to do: make someone happy on Monday. Make someone feel seen.” After some time it turned out that simple gesture had started something I never expected. Her name was Lidia.
She wasn’t the loudest in the office, nor the one who stood out in meetings. But she smiled often, especially on Mondays, which always struck me as odd. Everyone else dragged themselves in like zombies, while Lidia waltzed in with two coffees—one for herself, one for me.
I never asked why. I just thanked her each time. Sometimes I offered to return the favor, but she’d wave me off and say, “Maybe one day.”
Then one Monday she didn’t show up.
Her desk was empty. Later that morning, the manager announced she had quit suddenly over the weekend. No explanation, no farewell email, nothing.
As people murmured in surprise, I sat back in my chair and looked toward her desk. Her coffee mug still sat there, clean. Her chair was neatly pushed in.
I wandered over, thinking maybe she left something behind. That’s when I saw it—the note stuck to her monitor. “Things to do: make someone happy on Monday.
Make someone feel seen.”
I stared at those words for a long time. They weren’t dramatic. Just… real.
Human. Honest. That night, I kept thinking about it.
What kind of person writes that on a Post-it? And more importantly, why did she choose me? I wasn’t particularly cheerful at work.
I came in, did my job, left. I was polite, but kept to myself. Mondays were always the worst.
I’d lost my brother two years prior, on a Monday. Since then, I dreaded them like clockwork. I never told anyone.
Yet somehow, Lidia saw something. Weeks passed. I missed those small moments—the warm cup of coffee already on my desk, the tiny smile she’d give as she walked away.
The silence she left behind felt louder than anything else. Then one Monday, I did something I never usually did. I brought two coffees to work.
One I placed on my desk. The other, I set down at the new intern’s cubicle. His name was Sam.
He looked about 22, always hunched over his laptop, headphones in, barely speaking. He glanced up, confused. “This for me?”
“Yeah,” I said, offering a smile.
“Mondays suck less with coffee.”
He smiled faintly, nodded, and took a sip. We didn’t talk much. But I kept doing it.
Every Monday. Sometimes we chatted for a few minutes. He told me about his long commute, about how he wasn’t sure he was cut out for corporate life.
I didn’t push. Just listened. Then, one Monday, Sam didn’t show up.
My heart sank. Not again, I thought. But around 10 AM, he walked in, holding two coffees.
He placed one on my desk. “I figured,” he said with a half-smile, “maybe it’s my turn.”
We both laughed. What started as a small thing became something more.
Others in the office noticed. Someone brought cookies the next Monday. Someone else left sticky notes with jokes on desks.
It wasn’t planned. It just… happened. A ripple effect.
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