You never know what someone is going through. I hear people say this. I see them post it on social media more. I never know what they’re going through. Did they put someone down for being gloomy only to find that person’s dog died? Did someone put them down for being late to work when in reality they almost got hit by a car and needed a few extra minutes to catch their breath? Or, are they just trying to be higher and mightier than you? You never really know.
I work in a hospital. There are many scary things there. One of the most scariest things is the revolving door in the main entrance. An alarming number of people avoid it at all costs. Maybe they lack coordination. Perhaps they aren’t good team players. Maybe they think it’s a vortex leading to a parallel universe where zombie pandas war openly on the streets with vampire giraffes.
The revolving door was out of order a couple of times in the past week. It was a combination of subzero temperatures and blustery wind gusts that put the door out of alignment. One morning when I got out of a Lyft one of the maintenance guys was trying to align the door. It was super cold out, so he was wearing a jacket. That covered his uniform and ID. He must have completed most of his work because the tools were nowhere in sight. He was at the point where he was just walking around and around in circles testing the track. He was looking up to make sure the upper part of the door was not dragging.
People walking into the hospital started to stare.
Think about the scene they were confronted with: a guy with a wind blown red face staring straight up straining to see something as he walked in circles in a revolving door over and over again. That’s scarier than than the panda vs. giraffe scenario. This poor man looked like he was suspended in animation by the mischief of the revolving hospital door. A couple of people who passed him just kept it moving. One person shook their head. Were they sad? Were they dismissive? Were they angry the hospital let their ill out to play in the open? They’ll never know what that maintenance guy was going through.