Kindness In Two Acts

I had two surprising moments with people this week that really moved me. Apparently small though these interactions were, they broke through the conventional boundaries that make academic and work life roll along so predictably.

Background:

I have been having a dreadful time in my FrameMaker class this second semester of night school. That I will become a normally-performing student in this class is beyond hope. (More about this later.)

We've been understaffed on the night shift at PSL lately.

Because of his own neurotic business, one of my bosses there does whatever he can to avoid his employees while at work. He is by nature somewhat awkward and shy, and is also very threatened and patronizing when he has to interact with us as a boss there; when we are celebrating something outside of work, however, he acts like the warm native Maritimer he is, converses humourously and knowledgeably about all manner of things, and never fails to be the one to close the party down in the wee hours.

At one such party, he told me that he and the other boss truly are happy for PSHellers who move on to better things.

He proved that conviction tonight.

I was dreading coming face to face again with my inadequacies in going to class again tonight after work, and, because of another co-worker's unforeseen absence, I felt bad about leaving a supervisor alone to deal with incoming calls. I wrestled with the question as to whether to go to class as planned or to stay and help the supervisor. I felt I would, as is too often my wont, be shirking my responsibility to myself by skipping class, but on the other hand I didn't want to leave my friend and supervisor in a lurch. I also could use the extra money, and could be pretty sure based on past experience that my class would again be mostly incomprehensible to me. I decided, with some uneasiness, that I would stay at work and skip the class.

I thought my Maritimer boss and the floor supervisor would be happy about this.

Instead, when he heard I planned to skip class, the Maritimer--who had been working very hard that day, and should have been leaving then himself--came over red in the face, stared me right in the eye, and like the stern dad I never had gave me an order: "Go to class."

He then went and got his papers and made like he was going to do the job I would have done that night. When I told him by now I was already late, and that I felt a bit funny about leaving him and the supervisor alone like that, he said, "Better late than never. GO."

He and I may go weeks without speaking more than a word or two to each other, but he showed me tonight that he sees my chronic problem with not taking my advancement seriously enough, and that he cared enough to kick me in the ass when I found it difficult to do so myself.

There was absolutely no reason for him to do such a thing except that it bugs him that I was otherwise going to forgo trying to better my lot in life that night. It's not at all 'his job' to care about me, but care about me beyond my work duties rendered he did, and put himself out in doing so.

I went to class.

The other thing:

A few weeks ago I went to an Al-Anon meeting after a long time not attending. I felt awkward when I saw that one of my former teachers was there. I could see that she felt a bit awkward and surprised to see me, too. What we show of ourselves in these non-hierarchical first-name-only meetings is communal and can be quite intense. She and I shared our stuff with the others as usual during the course of the meeting and said no more to each other outside of meeting rituals other than hello.

A few days ago I saw her in a student/teacher context again. I and several other students met with her and another instructor to pick up our marked assignments from last term. At the conclusion of this, she and I ended up alone together in the elevator on our way out of school. She gave me some professional writing advice, and we chatted about upcoming conferences and workshops til we came to the same post where both of us had happened to have locked our bikes. At this point she asked the simple question, "Are you okay?"

She didn't need to say more for me to understand that she had changed gears. She was suddenly asking this question not as an authority figure but as a fellow Al-Anon member. I was a bit startled by this sudden intimacy and just said, "Yes", though it wasn't altogether true. I could not in that moment meet with her on the level she advanced, but, riding home, I was choked up that she had so subtly and easily offered support beyond our more customary student/teacher roles.

I had wanted to go to meetings more frequently anyway, but next week I will definitely go. If she's there again, I will tell her that her offering me that small kindness nudged me to come back so soon. I want to ask her the same question she put to me.