Most of us know that one famous cartoon picture of a noisy person who has endless things to say, but the mind is quiet, and the quiet person next to them who doesn’t say much, but whose mind is a loud and vibrant cacophony.

All my life, I would’ve looked at that cartoon and nodded grimly in agreement. And, like most people who agree with the wordless message in the picture, I count myself as one of the quiet people with the noisy minds, and find it hard to tolerate noisy people, who are so noisy they can’t possibly hear anything but themselves.

I was applying for a new job in a big company, along with about 15 other people. While sitting in the waiting room, waiting for our turn to be interviewed, there was one person about my age who immediately caught my attention; in a negative way. It might have been the noisiest person I had ever met to that date.

While at least half of the applicants were waiting for their turns nervously, mentally going over what they wanted to say, fussing with their appearance, or surreptitiously taking a swig of something high-percented out of a hidden flask to calm their nerves, this guy seemed to not have a care in the world. Animatedly, he made conversation with everyone in the room, sharing way too much about himself, giving advice on how to overcome the nerves and leave the best impression to make sure you got the job, or simply just chatting about the weather or whatever was on the news that day.

For each person who was called up, he shouted his good-luck-wishes, and for each person that came back out, he had some words of encouragement if they looked downbeat, or congratulations if they were confident. That may not seem like a bad thing, but it was noisy and annoying; mainly because I doubted the sincerity of every single word he said. After all, we were all competing for the same few job openings here, right? We were technically enemies; why would he be acting so friendly?

As fate would have it, he and I were the last ones left, but out of us, he was first to go in. He walked back out after a while with the same animated skip in his step he’d had when he’d walked in. And of course, he cheered me on with a wide smile before leaving.

“Good luck! Let’s hope we get the jobs, right? Hey, we might end up in the same team if we get them!”

Unfortunately for me, his words were to come true. We both got the jobs, and ended up in the same team. Even worse: he became the team leader. And he might just have been the most annoying team leader I could fathom.

Most of the times I ventured off my desk, I would find him chatting with someone in the hallways, and rare were the times those chats were work-related. Most of the time, it was gossip. He always knew all the latest news and juiciest details about everyone in our department; or probably even the whole company. It was rare for a minute of the day to pass where his laughter or voice in general wasn’t to be heard somewhere on our floor.

I couldn’t understand how someone like him had become our department leader, as his only qualification seemed to be his ability to have his nose everywhere at the same time.

Everything changed when personal circumstances made it impossible for me to get to work on time one day. I ended up coming in late and out of breath, and hadn’t even had the time to get my coffee on the way in. Needless to say, it was a hard day. The only bright thing about it was that my boss seemed too caught up in whatever gossip he had dug up to notice my being late and I got off without a reprimand.

Unfortunately, the circumstances prevailed, and I wasn’t able to come in on time or get my coffee the next day, either, nor the day after, and it looked like it would stay like that for a while. Every day I dreaded the inevitable serious talk and reprimand about being late, but it didn’t come. Was my boss really that blind and caught up in himself he didn’t notice? Well, I wasn’t complaining about not getting reprimanded, and focused on my job.

On the fourth day of coming in late, a surprise waited for me on my desk: a cup of steaming hot coffee. By the smell of it, just the way I liked it, too, and since it was my name that was neatly written on the side, there was no doubt left who it was meant for.

“Did you get me this?” I asked my desk-mate; he shook his head no.

“Who did?” I asked again. He merely shrugged his shoulders, focusing back on his work.

I could really use the coffee, though, and since it was for me anyway, I might as well have it. I had been right about my earlier assumption, and it was exactly how I liked it. I got off without a reprimand again, and therefore the day shaped up to be a lot better than the others before.

The next day, I was late again, and again I found the coffee waiting for me. And didn’t get a reprimand. I tried finding out who’d left me the coffee, but came up blank.

On the sixth day of coming in late, I found out my noisy boss didn’t not reprimand me because he didn’t know I was late, but because for some reason he chose not to. I ran into him right as I came in, my now signature 15 minutes late. All he did was wish me a good morning and a productive day. After that, he left me standing in the hallway, bewildered, and when I reached my desk, once again, the coffee was there.

It went on like that: I came in late, there would be coffee waiting for me, and the department leader didn’t seem to care about the time I came in. It didn’t reflect on my paycheck at the end of the month, either.

Still, it started bothering me that I didn’t get a reprimand at all; it wasn’t how things were supposed to be! Of course I didn’t want any form of penalty, even less because I couldn’t help my situation, but how was it fair?

I snapped when I came in one day and found the leader scolding the youngest in our team for being late; he must have arrived only seconds before me. The injustice of the situation bothered me enough that I stood up to our leader as soon as he let go of the youngest.

“With all due respect, leader, but what was that? I’ve been coming in late for weeks and you don’t say a word, and the kid is late once and gets a reprimand?”

To my utter surprise, the leader smiled at me.

“Your situations are different. You are a responsible employee who works hard and always gets all the work done in time; I figured if you come in late, you must have a very good reason. Meanwhile, the kid is a bit of an airhead who still has to learn to be that responsible. That’s why he gets the reprimand.”

Still smiling, he left, and I wandered slowly to my desk and to the coffee that sat there waiting for me, deep in thought and questioning my leader’s reasoning, as well as the view I had of him as a person.

I started paying more attention to what he gossiped about with my co-workers, and what I found surprised me, to say the least.

I found out he knew everything about a private conflict between two of my co-workers and had somehow managed to quietly arrange their work in a way that their paths almost never crossed, thus avoiding conflict and ensuring the harmony of the workplace. I found out that when my desk-mate had fallen ill all of a sudden, our leader had been the one working unpaid extra hours to get his work-load done and not accumulate for later. I found out that the same day he’d scolded our youngest team-member, he’d also gone out of his way to help him with matters that had nothing to do with our work.

What surprised me most, though, was when I found out the big bosses of our company were very unhappy about something that had its roots in our department, and our leader had silently taken all the blame and a major reprimand upon himself instead of ratting out the culprit. He didn’t take it out on any of us later, either. When I asked him why, he explained that as a team leader, it was his responsibility to make sure things like that didn’t happen. If they still happened, it was no-ones fault but his own.

Later on, when co-workers from other departments looked down on us for what had happened, he would always stand up for us, never revealing who the culprit was, and single handedly restored our credibility and good reputation in the company.

Eventually, the circumstances in my life that didn’t allow me to be on time got resolved. By that time, for some reason, I had just accepted that there would always be a cup of coffee waiting for me when I came in, and stopped questioning where it came from, and that someone had to put it there.

I was harshly reminded of the unanswered question about who left it there when I came in on time and found the answer.

In hindsight, I don’t know why I was even surprised, but in that moment seeing the leader set the cup of coffee with my name on it down on my desk caught me on the wrong foot. Without thinking twice, I spun around before he could see me and hid in the bathroom until the time I would usually come in, while a whole lot of questions flogged my mind and guilt gnawed on me for all the times I’d questioned him and his authority and had nothing but glares for him.

The next day, I couldn’t hold my questions in any longer and cornered him in his office to ask him everything I needed answers to.

I confessed that I’d been on time the day before but had hidden when I’d seen him set the coffee on my desk, apologized for my behavior and asked him why he’d done that for all this time when I had certainly not been deserving of it.

Once again, his answer came with a warm-hearted smile.

“When you started coming in late, I noticed you didn’t have the time to get your coffee anymore, and it made you miserable. I had the time to get the coffee; it didn’t hurt me, and it benefited you. So why shouldn’t I?”

“But… I have been nothing but a to you…”

We talked for a while after that. In the end, we hugged, and my entire view was changing. I saw a realistic possibility to even become friends with that person who was all kinds of different from me.

But maybe he wasn’t that different from me, after all.

Maybe he was just that noisy because his mind was even louder than those of quiet people, and all that noise needed to get out.