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Wednesday, December 11, 2013
[Born alone, die alone...]
This post is about something I've come to realise while sitting in my cubicle at work.
I belong to a relatively-new team at work. Being newly-formed, we haven't really gotten our own space yet. Our own space will be ready early next year, and in the meantime, we are spread out all over the department. We sit wherever there is space, and I'm currently sitting with people whom I don't really work with.
I have no common work topics to discuss with them. I chat with them once in a while about topics that are not work-related. But most of the time, I listen.
They say that we're given two ears but only one month because we're supposed to listen more than we talk. Perhaps that's true. Or perhaps, it's really not feasible for someone to talk using two months at the same time. Can you listen to and follow two different speeches at the same time? Probably not.
Listening is not a bad thing. I've been here for just over three months and I've already picked up a lot regarding how things work here and the culture of the organisation. Nothing really out of the ordinary. Every workplace has its characters and challenges, and it is no different here.
Except for one staff. She sits behind me, and her conversations with her husband got me thinking, and now writing about it.
I've never spoken to her about her husband. She's near retirement-age, so I presume her husband should be around the same age bracket. He has kidney problems and goes for dialysis regularly. He had an episode recently where he lost control of his bladder at home and made a real mess. He's currently at a hospital, scheduled for a surgery of some sort which didn't happen, for some reason. I don't know the details.
He calls her a few times a day, and while I can hear only one side of the conversation, it almost seems like she's talking to a child. From her responses, I guess that he's asking questions such as when is she coming to see him. Will she buy certain food for him. When can he go home.
Mostly, he is asking her to go over (the hospital is just across the road) and she will tell him that she can't do that during her working hours.
If I didn't already know, it would almost seem like she's talking to a little boy. A little boy in dire need of his mother.
Why, or what, would make a grown man behave this way?
There are a few truths regarding being human. Firstly, none of us asked to be born. None of us asked for this life. And lastly, we all die. Perhaps in the future, if science fiction writers are to be believed, this may change. But for now, like it or not, we will die.
When we're born, we are too young and unaware of what the hell is going on. So that doesn't matter. But when we die, most of us would know that it's coming. No one will know what that's like until it's their time. That is a most terrifying thought.
A thought that, perhaps, reduces grown men to behaving like a little boy.
^^^ by Locksley @ 10:19 PM.
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