I just drove 10 hours to Muncie, Indiana, where I will be spending some time during my 6-month Co-op with Saint-Gobain Containers, Inc. The ride wasn't as bad as expected, and stayed sunny after hitting the Ohio border (New York looks like rain all week!)
When I arrived at my hotel (where I will stay until I find an apartment in the next week), the desk clerk told me I wasn't scheduled until July 7th. I told him it must have been an error, and I was definitely getting my room!
He was able to switch the date and give me a key. However, I began to worry that I had driven down a month early (the only date I had was in an email statement confirming my hotel, which when I looked at closer, had the July date also!)
I was able to get a hold of my HR contact and she confirmed that I started work tomorrow. Thank goodness!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Sad People
I went to The Giant, a local grocery ring where my friend Katie works to visit because I was just next door buying a carry-on bag for my new co-op I am soon to start.
Entering the store, a small, old woman approached me in a quiet, agitated rambling in which I think she was asking for a ride back home with her groceries and was offering me money, and I politely told her I had things I needed to do. I went inside and the woman slowly followed.
Katie works in the office at the front of the store behind the big counter wall. I said hello, and the woman kept insisting that she needed help, was low on cash, was feeling dizzy. She did not seem to have a steady mind about things and would talk as if her sentences never ended. She asked Katie to use a phone, which she would have to ask the manager.
I told the woman that she could you my cell phone, and she said her eyes weren't so good so she wanted me to call 411 to find the number for a taxi service. I asked Katie for a phonebook, which she had several, and looked up taxi services, all while the woman was complaining how people don't listen to her and I reassured her that I would find the taxi number.
I dialed the number for the taxi service she uses and gave her the phone. She talked to the man on the other end and gave me back the phone. She then went on her spiel about everything she had been discussing with us, and how everything was wrong. Politely I just listened, not being able to really put the sentences together. At that point Katie must have gotten hold of a manager and he took the woman back outside to wait for her taxi.
What troubles me about the whole scenario is that she didn't seem to even notice I was helping her, instead spoke to me like I was a kid throwing rocks at windows.
I hope that when I grow old, I never lose the ability to receive kindness from others.
Entering the store, a small, old woman approached me in a quiet, agitated rambling in which I think she was asking for a ride back home with her groceries and was offering me money, and I politely told her I had things I needed to do. I went inside and the woman slowly followed.
Katie works in the office at the front of the store behind the big counter wall. I said hello, and the woman kept insisting that she needed help, was low on cash, was feeling dizzy. She did not seem to have a steady mind about things and would talk as if her sentences never ended. She asked Katie to use a phone, which she would have to ask the manager.
I told the woman that she could you my cell phone, and she said her eyes weren't so good so she wanted me to call 411 to find the number for a taxi service. I asked Katie for a phonebook, which she had several, and looked up taxi services, all while the woman was complaining how people don't listen to her and I reassured her that I would find the taxi number.
I dialed the number for the taxi service she uses and gave her the phone. She talked to the man on the other end and gave me back the phone. She then went on her spiel about everything she had been discussing with us, and how everything was wrong. Politely I just listened, not being able to really put the sentences together. At that point Katie must have gotten hold of a manager and he took the woman back outside to wait for her taxi.
What troubles me about the whole scenario is that she didn't seem to even notice I was helping her, instead spoke to me like I was a kid throwing rocks at windows.
I hope that when I grow old, I never lose the ability to receive kindness from others.
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