A study in contrasts

There are two social outcasts in our office, the untouchables of office society. One makes the coffee, washes the cups and cleans the main building. The other cleans the smaller buildings and does the garden. Both are subjected to the arrogance of secretaries and clerks who rudely instruct them to buy food and drinks from the kiosks outside, with never a please or thank you.

If I was one such person I would have a chip on my shoulder. I would resent the card that life has drawn for me, putting me at the bottom of the pile, with no chance of getting higher, to be spoken down to, and abused, by all and sundry. I would do my job but would resent the fact that I have no money for the fancy clothes worn by the people who boss me around. I would not get out of bed with a spring in my step.

Such is the attitude of the coffee maker. In fact it’s worse than that. He does his job with an absolute minimum of dedication. As often as not he is very late. He regularly “forgets” to make coffee for those working in the annex. He forgets to order new coffee when his supply is running out. He has a particularly irritating attitude to washing up: he will wait until all mugs are dirty, and will then wash them all at once and leave them to dry for many hours.

When he has the chance he will engage any member of staff in one of his complaints about life. He stands in the large verandah and catches people as they enter or leave the main office. I have no idea what he says but he has, as they say, attitude. He scowls and raises his voice in anger. His arms thrash around to make the point. Each day there appears to be a new grievance which must be shared with some hapless bystander.

I was the object of his derision on one occasion. I had been on a visit to the head office in the USA. I had returned with a company mug which I passed on to my deputy as she was employed by the same firm. The coffee maker came into my office in his usual graceless way. “Where,” he said, “is my present?”

The other, the gardener, is different. Very different. He is small and old. His face is crumpled and reflects a life of hardship. But he has recognized that his role is to serve, and he’s determined to do so better than anyone else. He is never late. He never speaks to anyone – just puts his head down and conscientiously cleans the floors every day. At any one time in the first two hours of the office day, you can be pretty sure where he will be and what he will be doing. He takes pride in his little routine. After the floors, then it is his time to do the garden – his pride and joy. He must cut the grass, trim the hedges, water the plants in the dry season, spray insecticide from time to time and generally keep it neat and tidy. One of his little projects is to try and get grass to grow in the muddy car park area. The change is scarcely perceptible, but change there is.

I witnessed the most amazing example of his work ethic two days ago. There had been the typical stormy wind that presages a rain storm, and the kapok tree across the street had decided that this was the time to release its stuff. So these balls of fluff, the size of tennis balls, blew across the street and settled on our property. There was so much of it that it was almost as if the land was covered in snow, or rather a huge flock of tiny sheep were grazing on our lawns. For the gardener this was a challenge. He gets out a bucket and starts to pick up the kapok in what seems like a fruitless task, particularly because there’s still more floating in. It starts to rain, but does he stop? No, blue overall becoming ever darker as it is soaked by the rain, he stoops over the lawn to collect the fluff, not pausing for a second. Within the hour, the rain has stopped and the sun has come out, and there’s not a single piece of kapok visible.

During the elections last year, when the management decided they needed to have the residential addresses of all staff, it emerged that he was sleeping in a cupboard in the office compound. Such was his lack of self esteem that it never crossed his mind that he should have anything better. Some quick action secured him a tiny room behind one of the posh houses nearby.

Returning from a recent trip I gave everyone a little souvenir plate from the city I had been visiting. They went down well. I asked the gardener to come into my office.

“Here,” I said, “this is a small souvenir which I brought for you,” and gave it to him.

“What do you want me to do with it?” he said, “do you want me to wash it?”

Why, he was clearly thinking, would he want to give it to me? Is this a trick? People don’t give me presents. That's when the penny dropped: he had no way of processing the information that I had actually given it to him.

“No,” I said. “That is for you. To keep. I hope you like it.”

And with that he grinned, and left (unless my eyes deceived me) with a definite skip in his elderly step.