Noticing Little Things

I wasn't planning to blog today. I didn't wake up with any particular subject gnawing at me. I didn't really have anything to say. But then I went to lunch. At McDonald's.

I had to run out at lunch to get an important legal document in the mail and since I was using some of my lunch time to do it I figured I'd just grab something while I was out. There's a MickeyD's between where I work and the Post Office so MickeyD's it was. As an aside, McDonald's just introduced a "Country Style" Chicken Sandwich and they were giving them away free with a large drink. I don't know what's country about them but basically they are an attempt at a direct imitation of a Chick-Fil-A sandwich. It wasn't bad. They came close to the original Chick-Fil-A but didn't quite get there.

Anyway. I had some time and instead of getting it to go I thought I'd eat there rather than in my office and do a little people watching. So I was sitting in a booth eating when this young guy comes around the corner heading to sit with the rest of what looked like a work crew that he was with. As he's walking his full drink cup tips off his tray and spills across the floor. Hey, no harm, it can happen to anybody. His response was to look toward the rest of his crew, laugh and say "My Bad." He then proceeded to the table. My hope was that he would put down the tray and alert someone at the counter that there was a spill so that it could be cleaned up before someone slipped. My expectation was that he would sit down and eat his lunch without taking any responsibility or doing anything to to clean up his mess. He fully met my expectation.

I was just about finished eating and was planning to tell someone about the spill before I left when I noticed an interesting thing. One of the other guys in the crew, from appearances a little older than the first, went to the counter and told the employee working there what happened. They reacted immediately and sent someone over with a bucket and mop and cleaned it right up.

Completely inane story so far I know, but what made it noteworthy to me was this. Based purely on observation and assumption, the first guy - the one who spilled the drink - I guessed to be either American or highly Americanized due to his appearance and complete lack of accent when I heard him speak. The second guy, the guy who actually did something about the spill, was clearly Hispanic and based on hearing him speak, did not appear to be particularly fluent in English.

Now I realize there's a lot of information I don't know about these individuals. To be completely fair other than the few minutes of observation taken as a snapshot of their lives, I know absolutely nothing about them. I'm also not trying to make any statements about race, ethnicity, culture, prejudice or any of that. As I was watching, the whole thing for me was about one person's failure to accept responsibility and another's action to take (or in this case assume someone else's) responsibility.

I wasn't intending for this to be a statement about the immigration issue but because it appeared the second guy may have been an alien (no, not the extraterrestrial, newly Vatican approved kind) I can't help but think about it at least a little. Truth be told I'm not really sure where I stand on the issue. I mentioned yesterday that I'm a Pisces. The symbol for Pisces is two fish heading in opposite directions. We are often taken to be someone who can't make a decision. The truth is we hesitate in making decisions because the world is not black and white to us. We frequently can see, often very clearly, BOTH sides of the argument and find merit and deficiency in each. Immigration like so many other issues has no easy solution but the one thing that I AM ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN OF is that the United States of America has no business building fences or walls. Beyond that, I'm open for debate.

Enough rambling. I guess my point to this (if I ever had one) is that a hard working guy who steps up and takes responsibility for someone else's spilled drink might, just might, be the kind of guy who will step up and take responsibility for other more important things as well. There seems to be so few of those guys around these days. Honestly, I don't think it hurts to have more of that kind of guy. But what do I know? I was just there for the free chicken sandwich.