a few dollars in the pocket
i study at tables in the the downstairs of a hotel lobby… when music isn’t in my ears, or when the tv isn’t blaring a soap, fox, or sports, interesting conversations happen. pilots with freebirds lunch bags in hand come almost every night; four-h participants appear sometimes, of course aggie parents and old ags cluster here for every football game and aggieland event. family groups for funerals or weddings are here regularly; yesterday, there was even a long curly blonde haired harpist here for a competition; then there are the friendly firemen—the old, the hot, the foreign— who’re here in hoards in the spring, with their beer and their barbecue. even with all this fluster though— the interesting conversations usually happen behind the front desk.
i met the manager of the hotel during my third year of studying at these tables. he was nice, accomodating, and extremely kind… but this isn’t really about him.
one night, shelley was behind the desk. shelley is spry woman with grey hair; she’s smoked for years, from the sound of her voice when she answers the phone: “guest services— ha’ow maiy i as-sist you this eeavnin’?” she never takes a lunch if she can help it, and she works till eleven every night. never have i heard her angry, never has she yelled or been curt or not served her customers well, in the fullest sense of the word. until that one night, where she was consistently short with every person that called or came to the desk.
i didn’t study much that night.
close to the end of her shift, as i kept dabbling with my books and computer, keeping my music turned down on purpose, i overheard the conversation with her shift-relief. she was short for rent. the hotel had not paid on time. she was short on rent. after years of working for this hotel chain… they had given her the short end of the stick; she didn’t know how she would make it through the month.
some studyer friends and i left an annonymous amount in her mailbox behind the desk that night. i don’t know how it worked out. i hope she made rent.
tonight, i overheard another conversation. “he sat me down,” the guy behind the desk said—the one who never fails to offer fresh-baked cookies on the house to every person that walks through his lobby. “and he told me—‘why you working so hard?’ he said.
“ ‘they don’t care,’ cuz i work 40 to 50 hours some weeks.”
“you’re on salary, aren’t you?” his listener, also behind the desk, asked.
“well yes.. but there comes a point, when they come about even.”
redeem the time.
i’m just not sure. some people work real hard. not many people make a lot of cash.
a lot of people work real hard. few people have insurance.
i’ve been led not to get an extra job that would fill my time. this goes against everything i see in the people i admire the most— the ones who work by the hour, paid by the minute. why, God.
i see these people and i, like i said, admire them. they often work for a system, at least in america, that doesn’t appreciate their hard work. but i’m past complaining about the system, like i did when i first encountered the system of a large universiy or a system of the state who gives you your social identity or a system of whatever places i’ve worked. i think it’s time to move past that.
really, whatever i do and whatever they do, in conversations or in work… we should do it all somehow, so that God can be glorified.
redeem the time.
it’s not time to rebel against a system, or the systems of this world. we can’t get out of them, for now.
instead, i guess, thinking about hard workers like shelley and cookie-man… keep working hard at whatever job i do have, as little or short or long or hard as it is. whether or not it’s in a system. whether or not they pay well, or on time, or if i’m appreciated by that system. because those things really are irrelevant to how He will redeem the time.
*first corinthians ten, thirty-one, and first peter four, eleven.
