IT'S NEITHER AS GOOD, NOR AS BAD AS IT APPEARS

The picture below tells us that we don’t throw this stuff away.  Even though some of it is not the best looking, and some is late in blooming, we know that there is something about it that makes us happy.  Why can’t we be that way about people?

I continue with the thought that began last night.  This brain activity is quite invasive and hasn't left me in peace for quite a few days. It takes a while to construct this stuff.   I could just babble on, but I try to avoid that.

So I got through the first month of my new career and I did learn how to do a lot of things.  I learned to recognize potential in people more clearly than I could before my month began.  Lest you think that I am bragging, I am not.  This first story is about a lady that I have to call Betty because I have forgotten her real name.  She came in during the third week of my initiation.  Unkempt, foul smelling, thick, crusty eye glasses and wearing clothes that showed that she didn't have a well furnished wardrobe to rummage through before coming to interview.  Three things caught my attention: she shook my hand with a firm, sincere grasp.  (Once, many years before, I had hired a woman based on her handshake.  Never regretted it.) She wrote her application in well scripted cursive, free of spelling errors and in perfect grammatical form.  When she spoke, it was with poise and aplomb.  I was impressed, but not enough to place her in the group of ten best of which I spoke yesterday.  The disconnect between her appearance and her presentation was too great a divide for me to cross.  She told me that if I didn't hire her today, she didn't care.  She knew that someday I would.  She nagged me every other day for three weeks, well past the famous month that we spoke about yesterday.  One day, at around 11:00 AM I got a call from a newly hired "ten best" that he would not report to work because he had found a better job. I hung up, picked up, dialed up Betty and said, "If you want to work, be here by 2:00 PM.  Don't bother packing a lunch.  If you come, it's on me."  She came, she stayed, she got promoted and five years later when I saw her, she had to tell me who she was.  She had turned into a swan and I was still a duck.

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Shortly after Betty, the supervisor RK needed help.  Someone smart, he said.  I was thinking that if she's too smart, she won't come here.  That was in the morning.  At about 1:30 PM as I was shuffling through my bales of applications looking for someone "smart", in walked the queen of Sheba.  "5'2", eyes of blue, lips like cherry wine" with hair that should have been in Fort Knox.  She was smart too.  I had one problem to contend with, her command of the English language ended with, "Good Afternoon."  I excused myself and went to RK's area and was told that he was in a meeting.  Sweet!  I therefore beckoned the second in charge, a lady of Mexican descent to come to meet RosaLinda.  They met, sealed the deal and when RK returned to the work area, it was too late.  RosaLinda was on the job.  RK was beside himself.  All I said was, "You don't have to talk to her anyway, just look at her."  Ohhhh, he was angry.  He left my office in a huff, to be sure.

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A week later, I get a visit from a deaf-mute girl.  She wants to work.  She just graduated from high school but no one wants to hire her.  Now I know that the lead operator over where RosaLinda was now working is proficient in American Sign Language.  RK left for home early that day, so I talk with the people in charge along with the lead operator who is fluent in sign language. It is arranged that the lady (I forget her name, too) will start tomorrow PM.  Next morning RK comes to my office and asks, "Well, did you get me a girl?"

"I sure did."
"What language does this one speak?"
"She doesn't speak."
 "She what?"
"She doesn't hear either."
I don't remember too clearly, but I think those were the last words that ever were exchanged between me and RK.
All these years I've been thinking of these events.  Along the way during these years I have come to the conclusion that the beauty of nature is that we have to wait for it to blossom.  We look at the apple tree in the dead of winter and admit that it is downright ugly to look at.  However, our mind colors it beautiful because we know that it contains an inner beauty that will be revealed in time.  Betty was a 23 year old in the Winter of her seasons.  RosaLinda was physically stunning to look at, intellectually the equal of Betty but with a grave shortcoming.  The Deaf-Mute lady was physically different in some ways, but the inside was brilliant. 
I've already told you about Betty.  Now here is what happened to Rosalinda and the deaf-Mute lady.  RosaLinda learned enough English to be promoted to the second shift supervisor's job in the department.  She also learned American Sign Language and she and the Deaf-Mute lady became inseparable friends and worked at the company for years.

I tell you this because I have come to the conclusion that this is how God sees us.  Short, fat and ugly or Tall, dark and handsome doesn't matter to Him.  We have to learn not to let it matter to us. 

 Someday, I might tell you the story of Frank.  He could talk.  He could sing.  He could dance.  He was a tireless worker in a dangerous environment.  It took me a month, but I convinced the executives to hire him.  They told me, "It's him for you.  You'd better be right."  Frank is blind.