I started a volunteer gig when I returned from Thanksgiving in Tillamook. One day a week, for four hours in the afternoon, I drive a golf cart at the Lee Health Regional Cancer Center in Ft Myers, shuttling people from their cars to their cancer or rehab treatments and back to their cars when they return. It is an easy job and a small way to repay the care that they gave Jett before her death.
In most cases these appointments at the RCC are not the highlight of the day for these people. Yet they are, for the most part, cheerful and pleasant. I try to be cheerful and pleasant myself on the theory that I can be a bright spot in an otherwise dark day.
So I was surprised when, last week, a woman in a car stopped to talk to me. I was sitting, idle, in the parking lot. I should mention that the parking lot that I troll is L-shaped. There is just one spot where I can view both the entrance and the entire lot: at the bend of the L. So I was sitting there, admittedly looking at my phone but still scanning for potential passengers. The woman pulled up in her car and the conversation went something like this:
Her: What are you doing?
Me (unsure what she was asking as it should have been obvious): Um… waiting.
Her: Why are you out here hiding? Why aren’t you doing your job?
Me: Are you complaining about the job I am doing? My VOLUNTEER job?
Her: This is the SECOND TIME. You are USELESS!
She then sped off. I had never seen this woman in my life, have no idea what she meant by “second time” and she was in a car, driving away from the entrance so it doesn’t seem likely that I had failed to give her a ride.
Anyway, it amazed me that she would take the time to berate a volunteer who was simply idle when there was nothing to do.
People.