When he first arrived in the dusty city of Amman, Jordan, he was angry with the hand life had dealt him. Why did the company maroon him here? In the Middle East of all places. Yes, he had a proven track record of turning poor performance around in a short amount of time but to his mind that should mean a promotion not a babysitting job half way around the world.

He dragged his feet into the office, his first Monday in Amman, preparing to cycle through the dismal quarterly reports the locals were churning out and regurgitate his prepared lecture on high performance culture and how he was a friend who was only here to help. Of course “ helping” usually came with layoffs of the bottom performers and a restructure of management.

Two sentences into his “I’m the friend you never asked for” speech, a hand shot up out of the crowd.

“I will be happy to answer all questions at the end of my presentation.”

The hand remained raised and a small woman stood up.

“I want to say thank you for coming all this way!” Her English was broken but her voice was strong and clear.

“No one has ever come to help us before.”

He fully intended to ignore this little woman’s out burst when the entire conference room erupted in applause. The shock on his face was only over shadowed by the rising flush in his cheeks.

He had done this sort of thing over a dozen times. He was usually met with feigned politeness by the crews he met. They would smile and shake his hand but everyone knew why he was really there. He was the harbinger of corporate disappointment, tasked with weeding out the weak links and correcting the course of the satellite location he was visiting.

The applause banging in his ears rang louder as he realized that they misunderstood the reason for his presence. Sure he was here to help, but not them.

Later that afternoon as he sorted through the files of this locations lowest earners, the small woman appeared at the door to the conference room he had been given as an interim office.

“How can I help you?” He kept his tone professional and cold.

“I wanted to invite you for dinner with my team. We have many ideas to help make the company more competitive.” Her smile was genuine, giving him a pang of guilt he had never experienced before. If she only understood how this worked.

Find the problem.

Eliminate it.

Move on to the next location.

Her warm gesture and honest determination behind her eyes got the better of him and he found himself agreeing to join them.

They were finished with dinner and enjoying coffee by the time anyone brought up the subject of work.

The small woman started first, “We have been asking corporate for help for six months and we are so happy you are here. Our branch has already started working on ways to increase our output and one of the ideas we had was to hire five new teammates”

He chuckled, she must be joking. He was there to trim the fat not feed the pig.

“I am sorry, hiring is not within the budget right now. Our productivity optimization program has been put in place to decrease the number of people needed to achieve company goals.” He wanted to gag at his own sterilized corporate bullshit response.

“Well when corporate reassigned our top associates to the US office we did our best to absorb the work load. Corporate never adjusted our sales goals after the reassignment and we have been asking for help ever since.” She looked at him hopefully. The entire table beamed at him as though he was the white knight finally come to save them.

He gulped down his remaining coffee and thanked them for a lovely dinner. Back in his hotel room he stared at the ceiling contemplating his next move. Play the part of corporate butcher? Or help these people keep their jobs after being screwed over by the greed of a heartless company. He never was the good guy and it would be nice to leave a place better then he found it for once.

Over the next month he worked closely with the team helping them streamline processes and train new team members. Every night was dinner a someone else’s home where the Turkish coffee flowed freely and the conversation was jovial and rich. One of the salesmen’s grandmother started teaching him how to make Kofta, a Palestinian meatloaf dish.

Amman began to feel like home. It’s natural beauty complimented by its warm and welcoming people. He had come to love this place and the team he worked so closely with.

Duty done and a fully trained team in place, he knew it was time to leave. On the plane ride home he smiled as he thought of the tiny hand that shattered his monotonous life and the team that embraced him and showed him what truly helping others was. He vowed to carry a peice of this place with him and to always remember Amman.