On Giving a Box of Chocolates to the P.O. Clerks

I brought a box of $7.99 chocolates to our local post office for Valentine's Day.
It's an insufficient building, where clerks work under drastic lighting, yet they're strikingly kind to the customers, who are mostly poor and/or immigrants. The clerks make unnecessary human gestures, like learning to greet people in Somali or letting people use packing tape for free.

After I bought my stamps, I gave the chocolates to our clerk.
I told her that my friend and I'd been talking about how great the clerks at this p.o. were, how patient and kind they were, and how that made waiting in the always long lines actually fun, and so we decided to bring them a little thank-you present.

She almost got teary, maybe she even did: her voice got teary anyway.
I didn't expect that, because she's always pleasant but super efficient.
I didn't expect her to be so grateful. I was really pleased but also sort of startled that such a little thing meant so much.