The Patience Of Jobs

As I was standing in the checkout line at Food Lion the other night, a thought hit me. Now, before I go on, I ask, please that you not ridicule me for shopping at Food Lion. It’s almost as good as a grocery store, and it is convenient.
Anyway, I was standing in the checkout lane, and I noticed, standing nearby, a security guard. The guard was an older gentleman, but that didn’t bother me. I’m one of those myself, except, perhaps, for the gentleman part. But, what caught my eye about this guard was the pained look on his face. He was also standing very rigidly. Even that didn’t bother me too much. I didn’t feel his pain, and, since I’m often accused of having a pained look on my face when I’m perfectly fine, his face wasn’t the problem.
Here’s what did bother me…the security guard was bracing himself on a cane. Admittedly, it was one of those fancy modern metal canes, you know the kind that has four little feet instead of just one rubber tipped stick. But it was, still, a cane. Now, I’m sure that this guard is a fine man, probably even a loving great-grandfather. And, I’m sure that if the situation warranted it, he would vigorously hurl his cane in the direction of any intruder. I’m even somewhat impressed that a guy who needs a cane to get around had enough gumption to apply for a job as a security guard.
But, how did he ever get the job? Why did he think he could get hired as a security guard? It’d be like Stephen Hawking applying for a position as a swim coach. Perhaps if Food Lion ever hires swim coaches, there might be a place for Hawking.
But it’s not just crippled security guards that puzzle me. There seem to be any number of positions filled by individuals who are incredibly unqualified, or just downright unsuited for that position. Take the staff at my doctor’s office (please) for example. My doctor is a wonderful man…caring, compassionate, all those things you’d want in a doctor. And, since he’s just one doctor in a huge practice, I doubt he has much influence on personnel hiring. But his staff is composed of the most uncaring, obnoxious, arrogant women I’ve ever met. I’m not being sexist. All of the support staff with whom I’ve dealt are woman and 90% of them are routinely rude to the patients.
While I know my doctor to be a caring sort of guy, I don’t get the impression his staff shares his concerns. In fact, I feel confident that if I were to walk into the office with a gaping whole in my chest and my heart dangling by an artery, the first thing his front desk receptionist would ask is if I have my insurance card on me. Then, after a fifteen minute wait for her to photocopy my insurance card, for the fifteenth time this year, she would sigh and say, “Let me see if we can work you in, you great big imposition, you.”
Why would anyone apply for a job in a doctor’s office if patients are an intrusion to them? I believe these gals are convinced that their main duty is to sit around the office and gossip with their fellow ignorer of patients.
One of these women called me yesterday to tell me that, based on a recent EKG, I need to see a heart specialist. “I’m not dying, am I?” I asked in one of those half-joking, half-really-needing-assurance sort of ways.
“Well, we all have to go sometime,” she says, in one of those half-joking, half-yes-you-are-dying sort of ways. Do you see what I mean about being the right fit for the job?
This is not a new phenomenon. I can remember, even as a kid, wondering why some people had certain jobs. Take Smiley, the milkman, for example. Smiley was our milkman, when I was a child, living in Boones Mill. Smiley was not the guy’s real name, I don’t think. My brothers and I nicknamed him Smiley because he never smiled.
Can you imagine that? Here the guy had one of the greatest jobs of all times…delivering milk both plain and chocolate, right to people’s homes, in cool glass bottles. And, the guy never smiled. We’d yell down at him from our bedroom windows, “Hey Smiley!” He’d look up and grimace. What a horrible fit…Smiley and the dairy business.
Then there was Lonnie Amos. Lonnie was a big man. Not as big as Lonnie, Junior. Lonnie, Junior was about five years older than I. He was a humongous kid. But, word on the street was that he had some sort of metabolic disorder (I think that was the term we fourth graders were using back then) that made him fat. His mom and dad ran a little business right in town…Amos’ Snack Bar and Barber Shop. Now, first of all, speaking of bad fits, a snack bar and a barber shop don’t really go together. When you ate a hamburger at Amos’ Snack Bar and Barber Shop, you knew something was wrong if you didn’t find a hair in your food.
But what really made Lonnie Amos (the dad) a bad fit for the job was his nerve problem. Lonnie would cut our hair with a straight-edge razor. And, on virtually every occasion, he would tell me, “Hold real still today, my hands are shaky.” Lonnie, so they said around town, had nerve problems. Now that I’ve grown and look back on it, I’m thinking Lonnie’s nerves may have come out of a bottle. But, don’t quote me on that. I hate to speak ill of the dead. I’m not sure Lonnie is dead. But if he’s still living, he’d probably be about 105 by now.
Truth be told I’ve had some jobs for which I wasn’t the perfect fit. For about five years, I worked in customer service for Time Life. That was horrible. Every day for five years, I had to listen to other people complain all day long. And even worse than that…I had to be nice.