I always say, the magic of the Starbucks experience is in the stores. Tonight, I had a Twitter conversation with partner Nicholas as he wanted to share with me:  “This is what is means to be a partner to me.”

Without any more delay, here’s Nicholas Hladuniw’s story, in his own words from his partner experience tonight, September 8, 2014:

Today at the bux was a special day. A customer brought me to tears. Well not balling but welled up for sure.

It was the end of the night and there was a lot of pastries to be gotten rid of. So I asked her if she has any kids at home who would like a cake pop, no charge since I was going to toss em. Which she said sure and I gave her three, one for each kid. She thanked me and proceed to leave.

However, she stops and turns around and comes back and she said the following: I just really want to thank you for doing that. I just came from the hospital visiting my mom who is dying from terminal cancer. I haven’t really seen my children much these days and this will just make their day. So thank you for making today a little bit better it means a lot.

I once again said it was my pleasure and glad that a seemingly small thing could mean so much.

After she left I had to take a moment in the back to collect myself.

It’s things like this that make me love working at Starbucks.