KINDNESS AT WORK; JIM DAVIS: A MAN WHO HUNG THE MOON

As director of the Girardot Center juvenile detention program and owner of a counseling consultation firm, Jim Davis' life work acknowledges the value of maintaining healthy relationships.

The quality of Davis' friendship is what Pat Murray and Wally Allstun want to recognize during Random Acts of Kindness Week. Murray and Allstun operate the Regional Employee Assistance Program, a counseling service that shares office space with Davis.

Davis' kindnesses primarily are acts of thoughtfulness, things he does around the office that make everyone glad he's there.

If someone is having a bad day, Davis invariably phones or sends a personalized card. "And he tells you exactly how he feels about you," Murray said. "He finds all the positive stuff to say."

When someone else's computer blows up, Davis stays at work until it's fixed.

Allstun admires Davis' combination of professionalism and compassion.

"When he says he cares about people it's demonstrated in action," Allstun said.

He recalled phoning Davis while wrestling with a difficult personal issue a few months back. "I called him on several occasions. I said, Have you got time for me? He did, and if he didn't have it he made it," Allstun said.

"He was there for me."

Davis makes it his business to be there.

"It's a kind of love he gives to everyone unsolicited," Murray said.

"...I think Jim Davis hung the moon. I'm so grateful to have built a business that included him."

Maintaining healthy relationships is a matter of realizing that your own best interests are inextricable from the best interests of others, Davis says, and confronting issues honestly when they arise.

"A lot of people say they want honesty, but when you give it to them it's not what they wanted at all. They wanted their own views repeated back to them."

The Girardot Center is considered one of the best programs of its kind in the state. Davis' approach to working with juvenile offenders is to provide activities that give them an experience of making a contribution. His kids helped build the volleyball courts at Washington Elementary School, for instance.

At the Girardot Center, he teaches that to be healthy you ask, What can I contribute? rather than, What can I expect?

"We say, You can live your life with grit or gratitude. Some people try to grit their teeth rather than be grateful for what they have."

Davis, who is married and has one daughter and three stepchildren, says that being noticed during Random Acts of Kindness week is "a little awkward. It's awkward that we have to do this," he said.

"Courtesy and common decency toward each other should be commonplace rather than the exception."

There's yet another awkwardness about all this for Davis.

"It's hard to get recognized for something you feel good doing," he said.