From  elsaar, Tales From Retail:

So this happened at work last Christmas.

I work in a family owned jewellers. The store literally had 4 employees at that point - the owner, owner's son, another girl and me. This story happened between the owner and a little 10-12 year old boy around Christmas. For context I'll just say that we were moving premises and tried to get rid of all little bits of stock. So we had loads of colorful beads meant for charm bracelets, and loads of silver chains. We really struggled to sell the beads. The marketing genius that my shop owner is, she just stuck a bead on a chain and sold them around Christmas for £14.99. Mainly kids bought them for parents since they couldn't afford more.

And now the story happened at a busy time about a week before Christmas. I was stood right next to it so I overheard it all. I don't remember exact words but I'll write the point of it. SH - shop owner, LK - little kid.

LK walks in.

SH - "Hello! Are you looking for anything in particular today?"

LK - "Do you have anything for £5?"

SH - "I'm sure we can find you something." She goes off and grabs one of those silver bead necklaces. "You can have this for £5."

LK - "Thank you, it's for my mum."

SH - hands me the cash to take it to the till. I take it to the till and the shop owner is putting the little box in a bag. She then tells me to go back to the till and bring him £1 change.

LK - starts tearing up.

SH - (concerned) "What's wrong?"

LK - "My mum has cancer and I really wanted to get her something nice. Thank you." and he cries even more.

SH - starts crying, waves me back to the till to bring the £5 back to him. Leans over the counter and hugs the little boy and she tears up even more. Then shoves the £5 note back to him. So they just stood hugging there for a while and crying and then the boy said thanks and was on his way. So the kid walked into the shop with £5. Left with £6 and a necklace for his mum.

Came home to tell my boyfriend this story, he cried a little bit. My boss is a bit of a perfectionist pain sometimes but at other times she does things like this.

-- elsaar