Thanks to my good friend Mitchell Allen for reminding me today is Blog Action Day and the subject is poverty; read his fine article Poverty Inaction. This is a particularly difficult subject for me and is impossible to write about without getting on my political soapbox. Poverty along with hunger holds a special place in my heart and I wish it didn’t exist. I donate food, clothes and money to the poor; not just to Americans, but to other countries like Africa. Poverty is horrifying particularly if you live in a place where you really have no options.
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Posts Tagged random acts of kindness
A few months ago, I was invited by a coworker to come to an outdoor picnic. I had an uneasy feeling about going, but accepted because he was so insistent. He is a married guy with six kids – being single, I feel weird hanging out with a bunch of married people.
To my surprise, the event was sponsored by a local Christian church. I felt really uncomfortable because I thought they would try to convert me to Christianity, something I really wasn’t prepared to deal with. I live in an area of the US known as the bible belt, so I guess I’m used to it. The main reason I went was because my friend Jason wanted me to meet his sister, who hadn’t arrived at that point as she was running late.
I noticed an old homeless man standing nearby. He was struggling just to walk and was blind. He asked a few people if he could have something to eat because he was weak and very hungry. One of the church members said, “Leave you filthy old man, you stink. Leave or we will call the police.”
The old man replied, “I’m so sorry sir,” and began walking away, using a mop stick to feel the ground.
I felt really bad about it. The guy who rudely told him to leave said, “Can you believe that? Every time we have a cook out, a goddamn trashy low life comes crawling out of the woodwork trying to leech a free meal off of us.”
I was shocked and thought everyone else would’ve been too, but they weren’t. My friend Jason and his wife agreed, telling their children to stay away from the old man so they wouldn’t catch a disease from him. I was so offended! I became angry and tried to avoid saying anything but couldn’t help it. I said, “I thought you people were supposed to be Christians. Aren’t you supposed to help people? I’m looking around and everyone here drives expensive cars, wears designer clothes and act really superficial.”
Jason said, “That old man isn’t a person, he’s trash. We can’t feed every vagrant that walks up.”
I replied, “I cannot believe how callous you people are. Real Christians don’t worry about material things and are supposed to love every human being…unconditionally.”
Disgusted, I walked away from the discussion, preparing myself a plate full of food and a cup of apple juice. I brought it to the homeless man and we sat down on the ground while he ate. The crowd stared at me in disbelief, offended at what I had done. I talked to the old man for quite a while, and wanted to share what I remember of the conversation. I decided to present it in an interview format for ease of understanding:
Me: How long have you been blind?
Old man: I was born blind. My parents pretty much rejected me at a young age. I’m really sorry about begging for food, but I haven’t eaten in three days. I suffer from dementia, and being blind makes things so much more difficult.
Me: So you’ve never been able to see your entire life? You’ve heard of words like ugly, pretty, fat, stupid? What do those words mean to you?
Old Man: Yes, I’ve heard those words, but I don’t understand what they mean. People don’t understand…I have never seen anything so I don’t have a concept of what things look like. It’s so strange to have someone ask me about that. No one has ever asked me about that. I don’t know much, but I do know I’ve been called many of those words. I don’t get upset when someone calls me old, stupid or whatever because I don’t know what it really means when describing a person.
Me: You go by smell or sound mostly huh? When you hear someone speak, do you feel a certain way about them because of the sound of their voice?
Old Man: No. People all sound different. I go by what they say and how they say it. Some people are mean or rude. Some people speak kindly. Some women smell pretty like flowers, and some don’t. I wish I could see, but I got over it years ago. You are so lucky to have eyes that work.
Me: No my friend, you are the lucky one. If you could see, you’d know why people are cruel and treat others based solely on what they look like. People who see, live their lives based on it. They like nice clothes, cars, houses, pretty things and so forth. Every one of those things are unimportant and irrelevant. People live their lives based on what they see on TV or in magazines.
Old man: I’ve never watched TV of course. I can read braille, but really don’t understand much of it because many stories are about what things look like. I don’t know what anything looks like. Thank you very much for helping me today, you are a very kind person. Just from talking to you, I feel like the weight of the world was lifted off my shoulders. Thank you.
Me: No…thank you sir, you are the luckiest man alive and I will never forget you.
He smiled and we shook hands. I offered to drive him somewhere but he immediately cut me off. He wanted no more help from me and slowly walked off into the woods. It may seem strange that I got into a philosophical conversation with him, but it does happen to me quite often. I couldn’t help but wonder what the world would be like if we were all blind. There would be no ugly, fat, short, black, white, pretty or any other superficial judgments. It was a powerful experience and I am truly thankful for having met him. All those people missed out on something truly meaningful because they were filled with so much hatred and bigotry. I do realize these people are not representative of all Christians, but only one small group. I know in my heart that not all of them were like that; someone had to appreciate my actions.
My friend Jason hasn’t since spoken to me for embarrassing him in front of his church group. It doesn’t bother me at all. I would be embarrassed to be like him. Just so you know, I never did meet his sister and don’t even know if she is aware of me giving my food to that old man. I read in the newspaper a few days ago that the old blind man was found dead on the side of the road. He died from dehydration and had been there for a few days before they found his body.
All my life, things like this have happened to me. This is why I am not materialistic. While watching TV earlier, all I saw was perfect, beautiful people; living perfect, beautiful lives. Everyone has perfect hair, expensive clothes and perfectly straight white teeth, capped with expensive porcelain veneers. All I could think is how ugly it all is, how shallow people are and how this world is filled with superficial ideals. My friend J.C. in his post, On-Line Television, put his TV in the closet. I’m not quite ready to do that yet, but there’s not much on it I want to see anymore.
It’s so funny how animals, like cats and dogs, don’t care about what things look like. They love you unconditionally. In many respects, people just aren’t as smart as animals.
Christy, from Christy’s Coffee Break is having a contest about Random Acts of Kindness. This is not something I did recently, it was several years ago. However, this incident is true and merits being told. It’s a day I’ll never forget and it changed me as a person. So, this isn’t an official entry. I simply dedicate this post to her and all the great people who are participating…a gift from me to all of you!
Working in many different types of sales jobs, I have learned first hand what money does and means to people. We all need money to live, unless of course we choose to live in the wilderness. I wanted to share an incident that happened to me that we can all relate to. It is my hope that we learn something from this! Lets get right into the subject at hand.
One of the highest paying jobs I had was being the manager of an AAMCO transmissions shop. For those of you not from America, AAMCO is a national chain of automotive transmission repair shops.
I know nothing about transmissions and at the time, knew nothing about sales; this is why they hired me, I was a blank slate – the unshaped clay from which they could carve a cut throat salesman. All stores in the chain pay the manager the same way, twice a week.
I was paid $500.00 every Friday (base salary) and then paid my commission check every Monday, which was usually around $1500.00 – great pay for such an easy job. I raised the store’s weekly gross from $7,500.00 per week to over $28,000.00 per week in the first two months. This wasn’t enough for the two owners, they wanted more.
I received several death threats from irate customers but the owners said it was normal and I needed to toughen up! It took me a little while to realize what was really going on; they were ripping people off.
Doing The Right Thing
A woman came in with seven children, I knew she was stressed and could sense that she had serious financial problems. She told me that her husband had left her and she was working two full time jobs to take care of her children.
It just so happened that this was the 1st time my boss let me run the shop completely by myself. Her vehicle had been towed to the shop and I made it a priority to get this woman’s vehicle repaired quickly. The head mechanic told me that she had a broken clutch cable! I was really happy that I could go relieve her stress telling her the good news.
A transmission repair is expensive, between $1200.00 – 3000.00 on average. To repair a broken clutch cable is less than $100.00 – big difference! I had a big smile ready to tell her the good news, when the owner stopped me and took me in his office.
He asked me if I had told her the diagnosis, I told him no. He looked at me and said, “Bobby, you go tell that woman that she has an internal transmission problem and we need to open it up to find out what’s wrong with it.”
I said, “I cannot do that…it’s a broken clutch cable, there’s nothing wrong with her transmission. That woman is working two full time jobs and is taking care of seven kids!”
He became irritated with me, “Everybody has seven kids and two jobs, she’s playing you like a violin. That woman has money…NOW GO GET THAT MONEY!!!!!”
I walked back into my office and the children were complaining they were hungry, some of them were crying. The woman was crying, her hands were trembling as she expected bad news…I could sense that she was used to getting bad news.
I smiled and said, “GOOD NEWS! It’s a broken clutch cable…$79.00! It’ll be ready in an hour.”
She ran behind my desk and hugged me, tears streaming down her face. I felt so good that I had been honest with her…I actually cried too. The head mechanic smiled at me. He never liked me before that day. He walked over and said, “Thank God we have someone here with the guts to do the right thing.” and shook my hand. I knew I had won the guys in the shop over as I had earned their respect.
The owner called me into his office, I could feel his fury before I opened the door. He said, “You are fired. I thought you would be great manager, but you are weak and we need a winner in here.”
I was glad he fired me. I did the right thing and am proud of myself for doing it.
How They Rip You Off
AAMCO transmissions (and most all automotive repair shops) charge what is known as shop labor on every repair. This is not based on the actual work done. It’s based on a chart in the AAMCO sales book. We charged 11 hours of shop labor at $49.00 per hour just to remove the transmission and determine the problem. This is separate from the cost and mark up of all parts!
One mechanic could remove a transmission from a Toyota Camry in 15 minutes! In many cases, the entire process of removal, disassembly and diagnosis could be done in two hours. We still charged the customer for 11 hours!!!!!
This is what greed can do to people and businesses. There is no automotive repair shop in America that will charge you for the actual work done, they will always overcharge you. This is yet another reason I see money in a responsible way. People count, not money.
