No Habla Englais?
Last week at work was kinda nuts. My "boss" Lara was out of town... she left me a list of things to do while she was gone and I did them all in one day not realizing that the list was for three days, not one. This left me with two days to come up with things to do. And I managed to occupy my time in a VERY CONSTRUCTIVE MANNER.
I've always thought that I was more like my father than my mother... but this past week I was my mothers child. We have this closet at work... it seems to be a "catch all" for anything no one wants to deal with... well, there is an office that is the "catch all overflow" it handles the rest of the stuff no one wants to look at. I've been told that these two rooms are cleaned all the time... but they were too much for me to bear.
I went into the back and asked for my very own cleaning guy... his name is Adrian and he is a recent immigrant to America from Mexico... and man did we WORK! on the first day we cleaned the closet... and it took us about 3 hours from start to finish... with a couple of coca-cola brakes...
On the second day we cleaned the office... this took us about 4 hours... we took a PALLETT of junk out of the office and found it's home... both rooms look ten times better than they did.
What I realized while we did this was that Adrian and I had no miscommunication. We just worked... he speaks NO ENGLISH AT ALL... he now knows the words "garbage", "keep", and FINISHED! Adrian and I did not need to talk, we simply needed to WORK. It's not very often that you find someone who will just follow your lead and help you... I guess that's what I'm getting at. He was just as tired as I was... poor thing works 12 hour shifts... but he kept going.
I feel bad sometimes for people who move here from other countries... they don't know the language, or the currency... or the way our politics roll... but they hang in there and work hard to have more than what they had in their own country. I'm glad to live in a country where people know they can come for shelter and help... a place that is a mother to all.
Last week at work was kinda nuts. My "boss" Lara was out of town... she left me a list of things to do while she was gone and I did them all in one day not realizing that the list was for three days, not one. This left me with two days to come up with things to do. And I managed to occupy my time in a VERY CONSTRUCTIVE MANNER.
I've always thought that I was more like my father than my mother... but this past week I was my mothers child. We have this closet at work... it seems to be a "catch all" for anything no one wants to deal with... well, there is an office that is the "catch all overflow" it handles the rest of the stuff no one wants to look at. I've been told that these two rooms are cleaned all the time... but they were too much for me to bear.
I went into the back and asked for my very own cleaning guy... his name is Adrian and he is a recent immigrant to America from Mexico... and man did we WORK! on the first day we cleaned the closet... and it took us about 3 hours from start to finish... with a couple of coca-cola brakes...
On the second day we cleaned the office... this took us about 4 hours... we took a PALLETT of junk out of the office and found it's home... both rooms look ten times better than they did.
What I realized while we did this was that Adrian and I had no miscommunication. We just worked... he speaks NO ENGLISH AT ALL... he now knows the words "garbage", "keep", and FINISHED! Adrian and I did not need to talk, we simply needed to WORK. It's not very often that you find someone who will just follow your lead and help you... I guess that's what I'm getting at. He was just as tired as I was... poor thing works 12 hour shifts... but he kept going.
I feel bad sometimes for people who move here from other countries... they don't know the language, or the currency... or the way our politics roll... but they hang in there and work hard to have more than what they had in their own country. I'm glad to live in a country where people know they can come for shelter and help... a place that is a mother to all.
posted by Bess Kirby at 8:02 AM
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