Security cam captures woman, homeless for 2 years, dance like no one's watching after landing a job

Editor's note: This article was originally published on October 27, 2020. It has since been updated.

Have you ever been so overcome with joy that you simply had to break into a happy dance on the spot? Twenty-one-year-old Kayallah Jones has, and her happy dance spread millions of smiles across the internet as people joined in on the formerly unhoused young woman's joy amid the stream of misfortunate events in 2020. A 13-second-long security camera footage shows Jones breaking out into a celebratory dance in a parking lot after acing an interview for a waitressing job. Posted online by Dakara Spence, the manager of the Atlanta restaurant where Jones interviewed, the video currently gained 1.4 million views on Instagram.

"So I just hired this young girl and this was her response," Spence wrote on Instagram, posting the video. In the clip, Jones is seen walking out of The Spot—a sports bar and restaurant in Atlanta, Georgia—after interviewing for the job. She stops in the parking lot for a few seconds and after checking to see if there's anyone in the vicinity, spontaneously breaks out into a little happy dance on the spot. She then continues walking away nonchalantly like nothing happened.

According to Atlanta's CBS 46, Jones had been unhoused for two years and lost a number of jobs due to the pandemic. Her life completely changed on September 29, 2020, when she managed to perform well in the interview and impressed Spence with her enthusiastic spirit. "When I got outside I didn’t know that the cameras caught me," Jones told the network. Spence revealed that she while saw something special in the young woman when she interviewed her, it was the dance that really sealed the deal. "She had a great energy I felt it as soon as she walked in she seemed really positive," said Spence.

"I called her phone and I said I’m going to hire you and I seen your happy dance so you can continue dancing," she revealed. "She was just screaming through the phone and it was just a beautiful moment for me." Jones is now officially a server at The Spot and she is extremely grateful to Spence for changing her life almost overnight both by giving her the job and posting the video on social media, which has since opened many doors to the pair. "Ms. Dakara didn’t know but I was going through so much and at that point when she gave me this chance and this opportunity," she said.

"I was elated, excited and so overwhelmed to the point where no one understood how happy and accomplished I felt at that moment," Jones added. Speaking to journalist Jamie Kennedy, she recommended that others also make it a habit to indulge in a little happy dance "anytime they’re happy, anytime you get a blessing, anytime you had a great opportunity and you have something that you were working towards for years or months, or praying for." The pair also made an appearance in The Ellen DeGeneres Show recently, where Spence explained that she felt a special connection to Jones because she saw a bit of herself in the young woman.

"I just saw myself in her because I know what it's like to be turned away from a job. Recently, I had other work somewhere in Georgia and I got turned away for my hair. They told me I can't return back until I have put like some type of gel in it. And I just quit. I was like I don't want to stay here no more. I said, if I ever have the opportunity to pass a job on to somebody else, I would never turn them away," she revealed. "And then when [Jones] came in, I was like, I like her. She's great. She made me laugh the entire time. So she's amazing. I love her."