Secret Agent (Wo)Man

No act of kindness no matter how small is ever wasted. Aesop

I now have that song running through my head. I'm sorry are you asking what song?! Haven't you heard this? Okay now that we've got that out of the way... :)

Today wraps up a week at YLSC of Gratitude and Secret Gratitude Agents. It has been such a fun week - full of secrets and creativity and covert ops. :) Being the Front Desk means my co-worker and I get to participate in a lot of the fun of the covert ops and we get to see a lot of what people are getting as their secret agent shows them some gratitude. It has been a huge hit - I'm campaigning for it to be an annual thing!
This week I have seen some "small" acts of kindness take people and their spirits a long way. We all need a show of kindness and gratitude. It's my soapbox - *you* may think it is "small" and not worth doing/saying/etc but small to you may be HUGE to someone else. And no small thing is ever wasted. They all add up together to make maximum impact. I've watched it happen this week. Everyone has been boosted by people getting loved on and shown some appreciation - it hasn't been limited to just the recipient. Somehow, someway everyone benefits when acts of kindness and gratitude are being done.

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.

More bang for your buck

This phrase was used a lot in 1953 but an earlier citation puts it at 1940 in a Metals and Plastics Publications advertisement. Read about it here . The phrase means you get more for your money.

Call it a Day

The literal use of this phrase hails from 1838 when the phrase originally was "call it half a day" to mean leaving work early. (source) The modern use of the phrase is to indicate ending something due to false sense of accomplishment.

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