Lilly Sway

I am motivated to share a view I have on an encounter that transpired a few months ago as I was trying to earn a dollar, I call it. I was helping someone to clean out there garage and had been hired to do the house cleaning on a once every two weeks or so when needed I was asked if I was interested in buying all of the baby clothes of a child size 2 for a boy I politely said that I knew no one who could use them and then went on cleaning up the garage and never gave the clothes a second thought.

I left that garage as requested clean as a whistle, then I sat down to a lunch that I brought with me, because if you have ever cleaned a garage out that had more than five years of accumulated items you automatically know that it will be an all day job. As I It was very hot I found a shady spot under a tree next to the home I was working at. I heard talking and assumed my employer had company, so I continue on with my lunch.

I was half way through my lunch when the a voice got closer to me. It was the woman who hired me on the phone, she had come to sit at the chair next to the window to use the phone. I was facing the window she saw me as I was there eating, but she assumed that the window was sound proof , because as I gestured that I was eating, I put my sandwich up to say so, she nodded and then proceeded with her conversation. This is where it got ugly.

My employer was hosting a conversation with someone. I have no idea who, but this is what I heard and very sadly I must admit that I happened to be a person who has a great hearing ability. This person was speaking about me, she said to her counterpart on the phone how great a person I was, to have almost finished the garage and it was not even noon. I was fully intending to move as I then felt uncomfortable being privy to her private conversation, but what she said next made me sit there, and  it made me sick to my stomach.

“Yes I tell you she is great but snobbish as hell how dare she turn her nose up at my offerings up all of Joe”s toddler clothing!” “This is probably a woman on her last dollar and you know that they always need everything, just who does she think she is saying no to my wanting to help her out”. I was dumb founded Should I have said yes and have those clothes shoved down my throat even if no one I know could use them?

I did not think so, not then nor do I now. My employer of the day went on to say “in her shoes at her station in life practically destitute, yes I can tell from the lack of attention to her cuticles and her hair graying, with out so much as a tint from a box from a drug store or what ever people like her use, these people should take anything offered to them, to show gratitude for at minimal the thought given her”. she went on and said “what a bad idea it was to have hired that pathetic person in the first place, you know all these people are the same they don’t know their station in life”.

She smiled at me through the window and went right on telling the person on the other end of the line that “she had decided the moment that I refused her help that she would not use me other than today”. She said “why try to help people who may be on drugs, or alcoholics, or maybe even just looking at your things to come and rob you later” ” You know they are all drug addicts or something of that nature”. (I in all fairness to that remark it was totally unfounded, I answered  to an add, in my neighborhood for this job, and it is less than half a mile away from my very home. She called my prior customers to verify my capabilities no less other neighbors of mine and hers.

I felt a heat rise through my back as if on fire, poor or in need makes no difference how you say it, you, me and any one in need of help is lumped in to a group of people who do no good in this life. I was offended and felt that yes anyone and everyone should have the right to their opinion as this woman most certainly does. I on the other hand feel that founded judgment is the only way one should destroy a persons dignity. I was not asking for anything, not a hand out, not a give me anything, on the contrary my full intention was to earn a dollar the old fashion way (work for it).

I could have been all of those things that her mind ran to, but I was a person who needs work, just plain old fashioned work, so what to do? no what did I do, I finished my lunch, finished my job, and then told her that I had received a call for a more permanent job and would not be available to help out as planned, she said” oh let me know if it does not work out. I really could use a person who does quality work like you around”. I just said that I was grateful to know a person in her station of life, because it keeps one grounded.

I was seething, and would not ever set foot near that person not ever again. I am in need but I am hard working, decent, humble, and not indulging in my “addictions” because I have none. I have rethought all of my conversation to the clothing that I was offered. I was very polite, and truly I know not one person who has a boy the age of who the clothing was for. I have my station in life I know it well I am a person in this world who at this time needs to help out financially in any way possible, for keeping our home is our first priority at the moment.

I know not all people are the same, and I feel sorry for people like this person, misinformed, uneducated in the facts of this countries economic state, prejudice to people of poverty, and who knows not a station in life that she would be tolerated to belong to. I am still trying to work hard at what ever comes my way, I eat my lunch in the car, hot or not. I do not want to know who else may think as this person thinks, and I play the car radio so as to not ever hear how rude or how nice people can be when they think you can not hear them talk about you. It was a conversation never meant for a person in my station in life to have heard.

Why? well I have warned you all,  and maybe , those who have been on either side of that conversation would rethink how your perceptions of others may be wrong. We all need each other.

Food For The Mind

Lilly”s Way        www.lillysway.com

This entry was posted on Monday, August 16th, 2010 at 4:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.