Shop attendant's kind gesture touches many hearts

We meet Pauline Muganda at a Safaricom shop in Nakuru as she helps customers.

She leans over to assist the seated customers and nods her head keenly while referring to one of the women as ‘mum’. Ms Muganda seems unbothered by the stares directed at her as our camera clicked for photos of a woman now being referred to as a heroine.

The 25-year-old has been in the limelight for the past two days as a result of a photo that shows her kneeling as she attends to a disabled man.

Ms Muganda is bubbly and full of life; she smiles easily and wears her heart on her sleeve. She has been working with Safaricom as a customer care attendant for the last two years.

Interestingly, she is a trained flight attendant.

Her talkative nature and love for people drew her to study a course that she hoped would help her become a member of a cabin crew, but she instead landed a job with Safaricom after finishing her studies in 2013.

Since high school, she has always wanted to work in customer service, saying she is naturally a talkative person who loves meeting people.

When we told her we wanted to interview her, she gasped in amazement, adding that she had been told about the photo going viral and that it deeply humbled her.

It was a typical Tuesday afternoon at work for her when a disabled man crawled into the Safaricom shop accompanied by a woman.

Ms Muganda said she was attending to another customer when her supervisor asked her to serve the man, whom she identified as William Kisumo.

“I created a rapport with William and was happy to listen to his stories and learn more about him. I just felt connected to the customer and found myself kneeling,” she said.

She added: “In one of the photos you can see me frowning because I didn’t understand why it was odd for me to kneel while attending to William.”

When we caught up with Mr Kisumo, a street beggar at Shik Park on Kenyatta Avenue, he said that was the first time he had experienced such a heartfelt gesture towards him.

SOCIAL MEDIA BUZZ

Kinyati Jimmy: "So kind, Service to Mankind is service to God, May God uplift her."

Monique Mwangi: "May God bless her beyond human understanding. She is a kind soul."

Benson Mureithi: "Waah, very touching. May God reward he."

Joseph Githinji: "While others look for sponsors."