It’s nice – really – that Tom Brady is the greatest quarterback in the history of fractional backs. He’ll be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as soon as he is eligible.
But there is no hall of fame for the convenience store clerk. Tom Brady is lauded wherever he goes. The convenience store clerk is on the verge of being punched out. A customer was claiming he had paid for two packs of smokes but hadn’t received them. The clerk politely said he had received them. The customer was getting angrier and angrier when I left.
Probably nothing happened. But why did the clerk risk getting slugged?
Because he was doing his job.
He’s paid to do a job and he does it. Just like millions of other Americans.
I read somewhere that workers waste a little over two hours a day on the job. Maybe that’s right. Maybe it isn’t.
I’ve yet to see a study, though, on how many workers go into hock, or get a second job to send their kids to college. And I wouldn’t mind seeing a study of how much time, say, a mail carrier wastes when it is 95 degrees, 90 percent humidity and it’s catalog day.
The thing is, people goof off at work and people work hard at work.
Work is performed by human beings and human beings do all kinds of things, whether they’re at work or not.
Most people – I am convinced – do the best they can. They work hard and worry simultaneously. I guess that’s what they call multitasking.
The vast majority of workers do their job in anonymity and with calamity only one serious illness away.
And there is no hall of fame for them. They aren’t millionaires or billionaires. They are regular people. Oh, they may shake their heads in sadness sometimes and wonder why raises are so small and why nobody has pensions anymore. But mostly they just go to work every day to support their family.
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Like that convenience store clerk.
I don’t suppose Mr. Convenience Store Owner knows that his clerk went to bat for him for some cigarette money.
There’s no reason why he should.
The clerk was just doing his job
I can’t help but wonder if some day there ever will be a Hall of Fame for Regular People?
Probably not.
There would have to be too many members.
Paul Sassone is a freelance columnist for Pioneer Press.