Within minutes of coming into the office today, JC was lying on the ground with his head behind the toilet trying to fix the toilet seat. Granted, I told him yesterday that the seat was broken, but it was a startling image when I saw him. No gloves, just on the dirty floor balls deep into replacing the toilet seat. I really should commend the effort.
But this go-getter attitude backfired about an hour later.
What happened was… inexplicable. I cannot honestly fathom what was going through his mind when he did what I’m about to describe. Sometimes things happen and I say “Wow, we’re so alike, he’s clearly my father“, and it fills me with a sense of pride. And other times, like this one, I wonder how we’re related at all.
Tom, Jeff, and I were working hard to ship orders. JC went out the front door for a moment where just down the sidewalk, a porta-potty for construction workers (and the occasional homeless man) sits.
When JC returned, I kid you not, he was holding by his tippy-fingers a pair of soaking wet jeans that were covered in shit. Someone shit themselves, left their jeans at the porta-potty, and JC decided it was HIS responsibility to dispose of them. No gloves. No bag to put them in. Just wet, wet mud.
The three of us start yelling, asking what the hell he’s doing as he continues his trek towards the dumpster. The smell was horrible. Like we were just sitting in a poop-filled porta-potty.
With no forethought, he throws the jeans in the dumpster as is. I immediately say “You put those in a box or something right?” Of course not. He gets a box and puts them in.
When asked WHY he did it, he said something like “I’ve been there before, I know how that is“. I didn’t bother asking why he didn’t put gloves on or the dozen other questions that came to mind. What’s done was done.
A few hours later the smell was pretty much gone. Someone’s bad day had been erased from Vine Street. There’s anger and confusion in the moment, but when I look back at stories like this, I can’t help but laugh.
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