Three years ago I stood on a stage, my feet resting just above the crowd. Lights...colored lights, a set, mega screens and one thousand people gathered to hear me talk, preach, humbly pontificate, orate and of course...entertain. My mission: at the nexus of entertainment, biblical text, seminar theme, personal interpretation, people-pleasing, and reputation, filter the truth regarding the Essence of Life to the emotionally charged audience. A thrilling task, an adrenaline rush and ultimately impossible. The crowd knew me and if they didn't they would by the end of the divine show...my name was in the program. It would surely lead to future opportunities to dance.
A month ago, while serving at Outback Steakhouse, I ran an appetizer for a colleague to a table. Approaching, I realized I knew them. I'd served on a parent board with one of the patrons.
"Here's your appetizer folks. Enjoy!"
"Thanks!"
As Fate would have it, I ended up running the main course to the same table, "We've got a Steak and Lobster, got the Grilled Cobb Salad, and the Alice Springs Chicken. Everything look okay?"
Without looking up, "Yes. Thank you."
"Can I get you any steak sauce or sides?"
Looking up for the first time, "No tha...Oh, hey! How are you?!" It took three conversations before they even realized who I was.
The same person stood under the spotlight and invisible at the table. We still live in a class-system. Titles and income trump humanity. So, I offer these words to the Hidden Humans all across the world by celebrating and honoring two under-appreciated, underpaid, and often invisible professions.
Probability guarantees something will go wrong. Fifty steaks, several cooking simultaneously, with a range of Rare, Medium rare, Medium, Medium Well, Well Done and Extra Well Done...not to mention the subjective aspect of every customer's idea of Medium Rare and the customer who asks for Medium Plus. What the hell is a Medium Plus? While steaks sizzle the line cook heats mash, steams broccoli, responds to the shouts of servers, "Give me a side of bbq?" and "How long on those ribs?" The temperature is hot-yoga level but no time to stretch. One of those Mediums will end up a Medium Rare or Medium Well. And most of the time, the only feedback line cooks receive..."We need a cook-up! This steak is overcooked. We need a new one." Behind every steak sweats a persistent, multi-tasking, hard-working, quickly moving, intelligent, talented juggling artist!
One of the banes of medicating humans into extended life? Long term care facilities full of elderly whose over-extended, overworked, and frenetic family members cannot provide the day to day care they wish they could. In death's parlor there are men and women tending to the daily needs of your loved ones...but not just your loved one, a half dozen or more. Eight to twelve hour shifts on their feet trying to uphold dignity when bathing, feeding, adjusting in chairs, talking, listening, putting to bed, dressing, assisting to the toilet, transporting from room to room, entering into the world of dementia, and yes, changing and cleaning soiled humans who can no longer do it themselves. CNA's grind day after day after day after day for change, knowing that a single off-day could result in termination or even legal action. Then they find themselves standing in a quiet room, holding the hand of a corpse who only yesterday they had bathed with care - tears for the moment knowing that tomorrow the deathbed of today will house another who needs a death escort.
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