Is this typical of a small office? I bet it is . . .
I manage a division of 14 people who range in age from 26 to 50. Most are in their 30s. They’re educated, bright, white collar workers: courseware and curriculum designers, graphic artists, computer programmers. Slightly more than half are married, and of those who are married, about half are raising children.
In less than four years, two employees have been involved in serious automobile accidents. One is out on long-term disability, her back injured so badly I doubt she’ll ever be able to come back to work. One lost her husband to a nasty form of small-cell cancer, then discovered, less than a month later, that she herself had leukemia. She endured a year of chemo and bone marrow transplants, recovered, and is now back at work. One’s wife recently kicked him out of the house and is now divorcing him. One’s been wearing a colostomy bag since his teens. One’s former husband killed himself. One has a troubled ten-year-old son who shit in my pool. One has an adopted teenage son and four children of her own. One has a wheelchair-bound daughter with cerebral palsy. One has a deaf wife. Three have part-time businesses of their own and one is a professional musician. One volunteers evenings at the VA hospital, and one donates blood whenever she can.
Some of this is my business, most of it isn’t. There is much more I will never know, and probably don’t want to know. I’m amazed at the lives people lead, the shocks they endure, the things they overcome or learn to live with, and how good they manage to be in spite of everything, just living their own lives.
Erm . . . except for that ten-year-old boy. The one who shit in my pool. He was born to be hanged.