Is This Unique?

I am a participant in www.linkedin.com, a networking site I have discussed here before.  One of my contacts, a young man in Singapore, indicated that he needed a job and could I assist him.  This young man is in the technology industry, (as are many of my contacts), who was born, raised, and educated in India but now lives in Singapore.

Being the wonderful human being that I am I sent his profile information to the few Human Resource connections I have as well as to a couple HR people I know that aren’t on Linkedin.

One person responded and asked for more information; they didn’t have anything immediately, but wanted to start a dialogue for the future.  So I introduced the two of them.  (This all happened a couple of weeks ago.)

Today, another HR person (based in India), asked to connect with me.  I agreed, and in a follow-up message to them I mentioned my acquaintance in Singapore.  (I also copied my acquaintance to let them know I had passed on his e-mail and profile.)

My Singapore acquaintance responded to me with a very gracious note. 

Dear Brock,

It is my words from bottom of my heart. Thank you so much for this. It is really, nice to see your helping hand in a novel cause.

Yeah, I was thinking once I start searching I can get the job within a week given that I have so much wide range of expertise and experiences in the HIGHLY demanding field:). But it is not always true. It is about a month, but I’m still on the process and haven’t confirmed with anyone irrespective of offers and opportunities I came across as on date:).

I sometime feels, may be I’m over qualified for the openings or time is not with me or its bad luck:).

My family joins with me to thank you so much for this. I’m very thankful to find such a nice person in the Internet. We wish you and your family always a happy and enjoyable life forever. God Bless you.

Kind Regards,

To me I’m not doing anything special, I’m just trying to be a friend and introduce him to people who might be able to help him find a job.  Yet, clearly my simple act is having a much more profound impact on him than I could ever imagine.

So my question to all of you is:  Why is this so unique?

Don’t we, as human beings, try to provide assistance when possible?  Or have we become such a callus, self-centric world that being nice is uncommon?

Egad, I hope not.

So I post here a little about my acquaintance in the hope that perhaps one of you might be able to help me help him.  Frankly, I know nothing about him other than what has transprired here, but he strikes me as a sincere and dedicated individual.  His background in brief is:

More than 12 years of varied experiences in the key areas of telecoms, broadcasting and IT industries.

Proven track records for successfully leading and implementing a wide variety of strategic partnering, business development, technical marketing, sales and consulting projects.

Extensively involved in business development/Sales & Technical Marketing on the latest technologies including digital TV (ATSC, DVB, MHP, ARIB, ISDB-T, CAS, iTV), HDTV, IPTV, digital STBs (FTA, CI, CAS, Nagravision, Irdeto, Conax, etc.), mobile phones (satellite, GSM, CDMA, DVB-H, DMB), digital mobile TV (DMB & DVB-H), VSAT, VoIP, wireless (WiFi/Wimax), terrestrial and satellite two-way systems (DVB-RCS, DVB-RCT, DVB-S-WCDMA), satellite telecommunications, head-end equipments, invisible dot/bar codes, etc.

I am still just blown away that a stranger on the other side of the world would think that being kind is so unique. 

That’s my 2 cents