Two small events happened that put Ms. Cranky in a good mood. One is an ongoing one but one she doesn’t always get to participate in when she’s not working ‘regular,’ like 9-5 hours and that is the nice people who pass out the free papers at the subway stations. Where do they train them? Where do they get these people? The papers are, of course, the METRO and AM NY. The METRO guy at Ms. Cranky’s local subway station is real pleasant but Cranky hadn’t seen this guy as she works at lot of very odd jobs with funny time frames --- walk the dog at midnight? Sure, sure. Work the polls from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. --- hey, why not??? Friday night babysitting, Saturday afternoon cat sitting, so this morning was the first Cranky had seen the newspaper guy in a long while and he was, once again, charming and smiling like Ms. Cranky was the best thing he could imagine seeing and when he handed her the paper, he wished her not a good day but a ‘beautiful day,’ Ms. Cranky melted (but, of course, it was already 92 degrees at 7 a.m.) but, she literally, melted with good feeling.
This made Cranky recall the amazing woman at the Chambers Street “A” subway station who dispenses the AM paper. She’s at the front of the train going into town right at Chambers St. and it’s worth the price of the ride just to meet her in the morning. The woman’s there no matter how hot or cold and she dispenses her free papers with a smile and a ‘good morning’ and, once again, it feels like she’s genuinely delighted to see you and Ms. Cranky wonders why whoever trains these free paper crews couldn’t train some other, ahem, personnel who are not very personable where Cranky always wants to say --- “I’m so sorry I asked you a question, it must have really hurt you to answer!” But, she rarely says things like that, not wanting to make a grouch any grouchier. The latter people look when they direct their vision to you like they’ve maybe got a bad stomach ache and maybe they do.
Then, Cranky attended this superb resume writing class at the Unemployment Office led by this wonderful teacher who teaches us the tricks of getting resumes across the complicated skein of computer programs. Cranky took this as a repeat class as she found she needed to hear it again and the guy was great. Ms. Cranky has found the unemployment people at this point in her life wonderful and supportive, unlike the first time she was laid off, back in Ronald Reagan’s reign of terror. Then, and Ms. Cranky had never lost a job before so she cried a lot, the people who waited on her and her fellow citizens seemed to enjoy pouring more salt on your wounds. Cranky used to go to the Unemployment Office and expect to see a shooting when someone would just lose it --- first by losing a job, then by being treated like scum by a bureaucrat with a regular income. But, things have improved, at least in her local Brooklyn office where from Security Guard at the door straight through, everyone is helpful and welcoming. It’s so easy to be nice and it has to be as easy as looking dyspeptic.
But, the second enhancement to Ms. Cranky’s good morning, well, maybe the third by the time she threw in the whole Unemployment staff, is such a simple thing but one that has made people so happy.
At a local bus stop where Cranky wiles away too much time, she takes public transportation all day and often night long, just two weeks ago, out of nowhere, --- no warning, no mention, no fanfare --- arrived one day a bench, a plain silvery bench, no back to it, nothing fancy but simply a bench near the bus stop that could sit 6 people if nobody’s too chubby. And, this was the second time Cranky got to use it and the second time the wonders of having this simple addition to one’s daily life sparked friendly conversation from other bench sitters who were thrilled, like thrilled, to have this city-borough-MTA-whatever gift dropped out of nowhere near the corner of Court Street and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Ms. Cranky knows that she is a push-over for small nice things but, about this bench, many people seem truly pleased.
Ms. Cranky always says --- “It takes so little to make me happy” and it does so the gifts of the nice newspaper guy wishing her a beautiful day, the memory of the other newspaper woman up in Manhattan making everyone feel welcome and good about themselves, the kind and smart people at the Unemployment Office--- who would have thought? And, this simple, simple placing of a bench near a bus stop so we could sit a bit while we waited. It takes so little, it really does.
Have a good day, evening, week, whatever. Please feel free to write me any nice little tidbits about smiling people and brand new benches and I’ll put them in my column and, of course, give you credit!
Thanks, as always, for stopping by and please come again.
Ms. Cranky, Monday, July 9, 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment