In my 30s I quit my super stressful job cooking fancy food for fancy fucks and got a job at Subway. It’s a long story full of sex drugs and rock and roll that led me to that Subway but that’s another story.

One day I was half drunk slinging subs when this lady came in with her daughter with Down Syndrome in tow. The store was slow, it was that dead time between lunch and dinner. Anyway, mom was frazzled but the daughter, Sarah, was so excited to be there. Mom got one of those flatbread joints and Sarah started in on an epic Cold Cut Combo. It had everything on it, it was about as big around as a small tree lol. I answered all her questions and it was like any other order, well except that epic sandwich lol.

They sat down and ate and I gave them some free cookies and went back to doing nothing. Sarah comes to the counter to say thank you, I say your welcome and then she asks me if I am sad. What? This took me aback a little. Some background, my parents had me late in life and poor health and age took them before I was 30. I have been alone for a long time now but at that time it was still kind of fresh and I didn’t have anyone that cared enough to ask if I was sad. I gave her some lame “no I am just tired” answer and she went back to her mom. They finished up and were leaving when I went to wipe down their table and Sarah came running up to me and gave me a bear hug. I was just standing there arms up in the air rag in one hand looking at her mom for guidance. It was sort of startling but man, I am hard-pressed to name a more needed hug lol.

Her mom apologised but Sarah just told me it was okay to be sad and they left. A few days later they came back and I made them sandwiches and they would sit and eat and we would all talk. I heard about school and her mom and dad and her mom would always apologize for bothering me. I was never bothered about it, I looked forward to my new friend’s infectious optimism every week.

That little girl helped me see some hope in what was at the time a dark place. I only worked there for about 18 months and when I left I waited until I saw them so I could tell them I was quitting. I ended up keeping in touch, went to a couple of birthday parties, and was pen pals with them when I moved for a new fancy food for fancy fucks job.

Sarah died from some complications due to her disability, she had a lot going on. She never cried about it, she was never anything but smiles and compassion. When I visited her in the hospital one time she was holding court in her room with the nurses and staff all smiling and happy. Her indestructible smile changed and in some ways saved my life. I miss that kid, I wish I had known her longer. Anyway, imma go cry like a little girl for a while lol. Peace.

The story earlier knocked loose a memory:

I worked at a small law firm years ago, and we used to have a could of community-support workers, a man’s and a woman both with Downs, come in to do janitorial tasks. The woman was an Elvis Presley fanatic. She would listen to Elvis on headphones while she worked. She’d talk about Elvis all the time. She’d mark his birthday, and the anniversary of his death. She was sad that she never got to see him sing.

One day, a potential client came in for a consultation, and this guy was an Elvis impersonator by vocation. And who happened to be there, by chance, even though she came for only about an hour a week? Yep, our Elvis fan.

The guy was really sweet, and put on an impromptu performance for her, and she was Over. The. Moon. It was a good day in the office.

Only in a bad sense.

Worked for an ISP only time I visited a customer was when their internet was hard down and we couldn’t access our gear.
It’s odd that people are annoyed when the tech arrives, like the reason we are here is because you messed something up in your comms room and won’t admit to it.

A million years ago, back when Reddit still existed, I used to hang out in the Firefox Subreddit and basically helped out with tech support there. At first, I just answered all the low-hanging fruit, but also read the answers from the more experienced folks and learned a lot from those.

And so, every so often someone at work (usually colleagues) will remark that their Firefox isn’t working as expected. At which point, I have my ten minutes of being a Firefox support professional, where I walk them through the usual troubleshooting steps and we get the issue resolved in no time.

It’s always kind of funny, because no one expects it. Like, it is a tech job, so it’s not unusual for a colleague to have deep knowledge about a technology, but with browsers, people just seem to think there isn’t much to know about them.

Sad fistbump, my immune system also hates all the plants. A HEPA air purifier in the bedroom and living room have made a huge difference for me, to the point I’m considering coming off one of my allergy meds. The allergist’s office probably already mentioned air purifiers as an option, but if you were wondering if it’s worth dropping the money on it, I’ve definitely found it to be.

I mean, everybody?

I was a nurse’s assistant as my real job. So, whether it was in a facility, or doing home care, all my patients were patients. Short term or long term, me being present meant they were in the right place.

Now, there were a few patients in home care that I was their first caregiver, and holy shit did they need a ton of work. Part of the job is maintaining a healthy and safe environment, within reasonable bounds. We aren’t housekeepers, but there’s a certain amount of housekeeping that we do because it’s necessary. And, very often, you’ll find NAs doing more housekeeping than they have to do because it otherwise doesn’t get done.

But when you’re the first on the case, it isn’t unusual to find a home that’s fallen apart. Even with younger patients that have family, the way illness can disrupt life doesn’t always leave time for the little things. So there were times I’d walk in the door and find chaos, even to the point of it being dangerous (mold, infestations, etc).

And yeah, the thought would cross my mind that I wish someone else had gotten to open that door, but the patient was sure as hell in the right place in terms of having help finally. So it was more that I was glad they got me to come there, but the spirit is similar.

Now, my not-a-real-job jobs were not at all something where people came for help, so nothing related there. But I worked as a bouncer for a while, did some personal security work, did some custom fiction writing, had a little knife sharpening service, and other minor stuff over the years. But they weren’t real jobs in that I didn’t give a fuck about them beyond the paycheck, at least for the most part. I always did my best, but I wouldn’t put up with any bullshit because I could walk away and not have any regret about doing so

Only place I would have regretted quitting before I wanted to was the drag club. A lot of good folks on staff, and good customers that I would have hated to walk away from without a solid goodbye.

All three of my past jobs were at places that have since closed down. The one I actually considered important work was in the industrial sector, so customers didn’t go there. So, no.

I work in public education. We sometimes wish they’d be absent occasionally, but we’re normally really happy to have them at school.

We were having an issue with a particular type of electrical relay.

Turns out our facility’s controls engineer used to work for the company who MADE that relay. She helped DESIGN it. In like 30 seconds she had it sorted.

So probably she was the one thinking “oh yeah you asked the right person”

My job is hard to explain and has no real terminology for it (which is natural, it is conceptual), which is why you’ll see me label it differently depending on when I refer to it, but it’s basically the hometown equivalent of how a school might highlight student achievements (and yes, it’s highly quasi-official). People come to us often to put it on record that they did something good, an uphill request I might add if society is based on shame. From this position, I’ve had encounters with a few people who, to put it lightly, if they lived in Japan, they’d be asked to commit a hundred seppukus from the literal atmosphere, often locally ordained, swirling around them. And at least once I was like “this is what I live for”, which is also at the same time tragic because what they go through is also the kind of life I live; ironically, for the deed of pointing out the good in these pariahs, on top of that even more shame is accumulated onto me.