(
Stuck
So I’m getting ready to get on an airplane. I had gone to the ticket counter to get my seat as I hadn’t yet been assigned one. It was a last minute booking, so I had to go the boarding gate counter to find where I would be sitting. I approached the attendant, who wore a practiced scowl driven into the lines of her face from years of accumulated stress and inquired about my seat. She printed up a boarding pass and I noted the scrolling words on the information board directly behind her. It said, “There will be no change of seats as the flight is full.”
Being somewhat subversive, in spite of the sign, I asked if it would be possible to change seats because I was in a middle seat and I much prefer an aisle seat. Okay, I know, why not just go with what the sign said. Well, I generally figure that there’s no harm in asking. Although some rules make sense, others do not. What if it’s very late at night, little or no traffic, and you’re stuck at a red stoplight that seems to be stuck? Would you go? Or would you wait another two or three minutes? I confess that I would be patient for only so long and then would go.
So I asked if I could change seats anyway, and she of course said that it would not be possible. She even mentioned that she had just assigned a very large man a middle seat, as there were no others left. I started to ask another question, but she had moved on to the next customer. I muttered under my breath, “you don’t care,” then stepped back, slowly surrendering to my fate of being in a middle seat.
She really was just doing her job and I was being petulant.
Then it struck me that I really don’t know anything about this woman whose name I’ll never know. She looked burned out and unhappy, but who am I to judge her in anyway without having some idea of how much suffering she may have gone through in her life. In my narcissistic version, she was being inattentive to me, and how could she? Doesn’t she know that I’m an important person?
I had to silently laugh at myself for so subtly blaming and judging her. I looked at her again for a few moments as she continued dealing with a full flight of passengers. A wave of compassion swept over me, not only for her but for others who seemed to feel stuck in their jobs, hanging in there for the security or money, but piling up the cumulative stress of the demands of the job while filling the chalice of discontent and unhappiness.
But everybody’s got to make a living.
