It’s not often I have cause to mention my local supermarket on my blog, even though I am cared for like a princess by staff who see me pop in on a regular basis. Today, though, I am celebrating the law of unintended consequences and an opportunity to ‘pay it forward’.

Now, in case you haven’t come across the ‘pay it forward’ idea, I commend you to watch the film of the same name with Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment. In this film a young boy comes up with the idea as his response to his teacher’s invitation to students to create something that will make the world a better place. The idea? Do someone a favour and ask them not to pay it back but to pay it forward.

Now, when I first saw this film, the young man who served me at my local video rental shop (those were the days!) gave me a very strange look and – if I remember rightly – described the film as decidedly “cheesy”. Needless to say I didn’t tell him that I was planning to watch it as one of our optional “homeworks” with fellow students on my NLP Practitioner programme.

But what of my local supermarket? Well, if you shop at Sainsbury’s and you are a Nectar Card holder you may have noticed the recent introduction of a natty little box that dispenses small slips of paper with special offers when you pay for your shopping. More than once, my special offer has been an inducement to spend £40.00 or more – something I rarely do given that I live so close and hardly ever do a “big shop”.

Yesterday I had one of these slips in my purse when I popped in to Sainsbury’s. I knew it was reaching its sell-by date and I had only a small number of things to buy so I was delighted to offer it to the woman in front of me at the check-out. This meant that she got £4.00 off her shopping – about 10% – and I had the satisfaction of knowing that this little slip of paper didn’t end up unused in my bin.

Now, it’s a strange thing, but I sense that the impact of this small gesture on both of us – who knows, maybe even on those who observed it – was disproportionate to its monetary value. The woman offered to pay me the £4.00 she’d saved and I was delighted to say no – all the more so because I could see she was doing the family shop. She was clearly touched by the kindness of a stranger. I was touched in turn knowing I had made this gesture and been seen. And when two strangers show kindness to each other, the world always becomes a safer more comfortable place.

What of Sainsbury’s? I am guessing that this interaction isn’t what they planned when they set up their boxes full of inducements to buy. And still, I’d like to think that if their marketeers were sitting round imagining the impact on local communities of many ‘brief encounters’ like this one, they might chose to say, “yes! let’s do this and celebrate our role in making the world a better place!”