Tallahassee police officer helps homeless man shave to land a job; the video went viral

Nada Hassanein | Tallahassee Democrat

Show Caption Hide Caption TPD officer helps man shave for job interview Tallahassee Police Officer Tony Carlson helps a man shave at a Thomasville Road gas station in preparation for a job interview at McDonald's.

The world could use more random acts of kindness.

Tony Carlson, a Tallahassee police officer, didn’t think he was being recorded during one on Sunday.

After responding to a call near the Circle K on Thomasville Road, Carlson pulled into the gas station's parking lot. He saw a homeless man there, trying to shave his beard.

The man, whose name the officer said is Phil, didn’t have a mirror and was having trouble with the razor. So, Carlson stopped to help him. He tightened a screw on the razor, and shaved Phil's thick beard for him.

Phil had applied for a job at the McDonald's next door. He told the officer he just needed to be clean-shaven to get hired.

“If he’s wanting to help himself, I need to be more than helpful and try to help him out the best I can," Carlson said.

The video, taken by a resident who was at the gas station and then shared on Facebook, received 113,000 views and more than 2,000 shares on Facebook as of Monday afternoon.

“Hopefully from this, Phil will get a job," Carlson said.

As long as his background check comes back clean and he provides an ID, the job will be held for him, a McDonald's spokeswoman told the Tallahassee Democrat Monday afternoon.

"I got to get my ID and Social Security card, which Thursday they do at the homeless shelter," Phil told radio show host Greg Tish in a video posted to Tish's Twitter account. He talked about the position being a janitorial one — "And I'm going to do it," he said with a nod.

Phil was so excited after the simple shave, Carlson remembered. He joked with the officer that he should be a barber.

“You might want to check in the mirror before you tell me I need to be a barber," Carlson joked back.

He said law enforcement's acts of hidden altruism are plenty.

But, "it just so happens that this time, somebody caught it on film."

Reach Nada Hassanein at nhassanein@tallahassee.com or on Twitter @nhassanein_.