A Truckers
Story-If this doesn't light your fire...your wood is wet!
I try not to be
biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie His placement counselor assured
me that he would be a good, reliable busboy. But I had never had a mentally
handicapped employee and wasn't sure I wanted one. I wasn't sure how my
customers would react to Stevie.
He was short, a
little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Downs
Syndrome. I wasn't worried about most of my trucker customers because truckers
don't generally care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good
and the pies are homemade.
The
four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy college kids
traveling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with
their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded "truck stop germ" the pairs of
white-shirted business men on expense accounts who think every truck stop
waitress wants to be flirted with. I knew those people would be uncomfortable
around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.
I shouldn't
have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his
stubby little finger, and within a month, my truck regulars had adopted him as
their official truck stop mascot.
After that, I
really didn't care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a
21-year-old in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but
fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and peppershaker was exactly
in its place, not a bread crumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done
with the table. Our only problem was persuading him to wait to clean a table
until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background,
shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a
table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus
dishes and glasses onto his cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a
practiced flourish of his rag.
If he thought a
customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took
pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to
please each and every person he met.
Over time, we
learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated
surgeries for cancer. They lived on their Social Security benefits in public
housing two miles from the truck stop. Their social worker, who stopped to check
on him every so often, admitted they had fallen between the cracks. Money was
tight, and what I paid him was probably the difference between them being able
to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home. That's why the
restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in
three years that Stevie missed work.
He was at the
Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His
social worker said that people with Downs Syndrome often have heart problems at
an early age so this wasn't unexpected, and there was a good chance he would
come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months.
A ripple of
excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was
out of surgery, in recovery, and doing fine.
Frannie, the
head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she
heard the good news
Belle Ringer,
one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of this 50-year-old
grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table.
Frannie
blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Belle Ringer a withering
look.
He grinned.
"OK, Frannie, what was that all about?" he asked.
"We just got
word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay."
"I was
wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery
about?"
Frannie quickly
told Belle Ringer and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie's
surgery, then sighed: "Yeah, I'm glad he is going to be OK," she said. "But I
don't know how he and his Mom are going to handle all the bills. From what I
hear, they're barely getting by as it is." Belle Ringer nodded thoughtfully, and
Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables. Since I hadn't had time
to round up a busboy to replace Stevie and really didn't want to replace him,
the girls were busing their own tables that day until we decided what to do.
After the
morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins
in her hand and a funny look on her face.
"What's up?" I
asked.
"I didn't get
that table where Belle Ringer and his friends were sitting cleared off after
they left, and Pony Pete and Tony Tipper were sitting there when I got back to
clean it off," she said "This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup."
She handed the
napkin to me, and three $20 bills fell onto my desk when I opened it. On the
outside, in big, bold letters, was printed "Something For Stevie".
"Pony Pete
asked me what that was all about," she said, "so I told him about Stevie and his
Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony looked at Pete, and they
ended up giving me this." She handed me another paper napkin that had "Something
For Stevie" scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds.
Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply:
"truckers."
That was three
months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back
to work.
His placement
worker said he's been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and
it didn't matter at all that it was a holiday He called 10 times in the past
week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or
that his job was in jeopardy. I arranged to have his mother bring him to work. I
then met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day
back.
Stevie was
thinner and paler, but couldn't stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and
headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting.
"Hold up there,
Stevie, not so fast," I said. I took him and his mother by their arms. "Work can
wait for a minute. To celebrate you coming back, breakfast for you and your
mother is on me!" I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the
room.
I could feel
and hear the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining
room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers
empty and join the procession. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface
was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly
crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins.
"First thing
you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess," I said. I tried to sound
stern.
Stevie looked
at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had
"Something for Stevie" printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills
fell onto the table.
Stevie stared
at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each
with his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to his mother. "There's more
than $10,000 in cash and checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking
companies that heard about your problems. "Happy Thanksgiving,".
Well, it got
real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there
were a few tears, as well.
But you know
what's funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each
other, Stevie, with a big, big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups
and dishes from the table.
Best worker I
ever hired.
Plant a seed
and watch it grow.
Have A Blessed & Happy Thanksgiving!
Marion