Thursday, January 24, 2008

The Other Side

How many times do you put yourself in someone elses shoes? I am a peoples person and I often think about what other people are going through. like right now, while I'm blogging, someone is sleeping, someone is being promoted or fired. Someone is losing a loved one and someone is embarking in a new journey that is life. Someone is being kissed for the first time and someone is having their heart broken. Someone is getting engaged and yes, some people are even having sex...right now.
Someone is smiling, someone is angry, someone is crying and someone is laughing with all their might.

Ever since I was a little girl, I have put myself in other peoples shoes. Sure, it's been detrimental at times where I've been walked all over, but it's just something I've always had in my essence.

Last night I went out for another "quiet" night with the girls. Ahem, got home at 3am.
Lesson 1: Always take your own car, so you can leave when you want to.
I admittedly wanted to go home about 3 hours earlier. At about 2am, I sat down to rest my painful feet *damn stilettos* The club was slowly starting to empty out and while I was sitting there, sipping on my cocktail and dragging my cigarette, I suddenly noticed something I've never noticed before. The cleaners in the club mopping the floors , picking up ciggie stompies, cleaning broken glass and generally keeping the place decent.
I noticed a really drunk bunch of guys laughing and carrying on in the not so amusing drunken state. I had just watched this petite lady sweep up all the ciggies and shards of glass around the area that the guys were standing.
Immediately the guy dropped his beer bottle, which shattered into thousands of tiny pieces. The guy then laughed and kicked the glass pieces so that they were away from him. The glass went flying over an even bigger surface and I just watched the ladies face. She looked so upset since she had just cleaned up an unecessary mess, to clean up it all over again and to clean an even bigger area than before.
I looked around the room to see groups of friends laughing, drinking and dancing and generally having a good time, completely ignorant to the fact that there were quite a few cleaners trying to make sure girls who'd abandoned their painful shoes didn't get their feet cut on glass and generally keeping the place clean. No one noticed them and if they did they ignored their existance. I watched one girl bump into a cleaner crouched down picking things up. She looked down and then looked back up again as if she had bumped into the leg of the table.
I do understand that they're paid to do this, but I put myself in their shoes. Everyone's having a good time, while they're cleaning up after us...watching us having a good time and not being able to join in because they're working. I felt really bad.

Sometimes, we just need to take a look at other perspectives every now and again. It keeps us in check and it keeps us human in this rat race world.

7 comments:

The Divine Miss M said...

O that is so sad. Horrible really. I hate drunk people. I hate myself when I'm drunk.

Luckily I don't socialise in the stylish type of places that have cleaners working all the time picking up the glass ;)

No but seriously, we should take stock of our lives in regards to others. Whenever I'm really upset about something trivial I remind myself that it could be so much worse and that I really should just get some perspective.

Usually works :)

SheBee said...

Demmit. This post made me sad.

Nice job though, B - you really came across and touched me with your writing.

Anonymous said...

WTF, it's their job...like duh, h ow you going to feel sorry that they can't join in??? and just because a floor is cleaned once doesn't mean it must remain that way, impossible in a club, its the nature of the situation, it will keep getting messed and will have to be cleaned a few times.

The Blonde Blogshell said...

Hi Anon. Nice to see you have a heart! Thanks for stopping by :-)

SheBee said...

If Blondie is too nice to say anything, then I will:

WTF Anon! She wasn't stipulating that it wasn't their job, but being human and feeling compassion.

Sorry that it escaped you, I thought it was a brilliant post. You should re read it.

The Blonde Blogshell said...

Hey Miss M ... you're right! It's nice to get some perspective sometimes!

The Blonde Blogshell said...

Thanks Sheena! You're a sweetheart x