No one is ‘above’ you (or below you)

It always makes me chuckle when I think of all those people going about their business, as I collect the letters from the post boxes, and a lot of them probably do think “ohh, that poor man, he must be so fed up of being a postman, and frustrated that he can’t do better in life”….

Erm….NO! I’ve never been ambitious in my whole life. I’ve never wanted to be a manager. I’ve never wanted to have a ‘team’ under me. I’ve never wanted to reach the top. I’ve just sought and sought my whole fucking life to find myself a job that I ENJOY showing up to do, getting paid money for it, then fucking off home again without having to think about that job. Where I’ve ended up is perfect for me (notwithstanding the awkward strikes that I refuse to take part in).

I meet a lot of people in my job now. I see a lot of those posh types, and certainly those entitled types who ask me “oh, could you just hang on while I post this” – as in they’ve yet to pay for their parcel and expect me to wait, because of course it’s THEIR parcel, and obviously THE most important one – seemingly not quite aware I am actually running on a schedule and I do actually have other collection times to make it to after that one. Yeeeaaahh fuck everyone else’s stuff, I’ll just stand around here and wait for YOUR parcel to collect.

I also have been feeling protective of my fellow ‘working man’. By this I mean people with PROPER jobs. Real jobs. Not fucking vacuous shit like “workflow manager”, or “Head of Social Media” (that’s basically some dolt going “Sarah? Post about this on our Twitter”). No I’m talking about the fork lift drivers I see at one of my collection points, or one of the site staff at a recycling centre, who was being shouted at by some entitled bint the other day as I was waiting a few cars behind to recycle some stuff. At one point she uttered the dreadful line “who d’you fink you are?!!”. Well actually, love, he’s the fucking bloke whose site you’re on, and who has the authority to tell you to fuck right off of it again if he so chose. He was getting quite worked up himself, but only in a defensive, ‘I am not a meek little mouse’ type way.

So I pulled up next to where he’d sat back down again in the little booth by the barrier, and said “excuse me” and he said “yessir” – you know, as in consumate professionalism a few seconds after being shouted at by some gobby bint. I said “ignore silly people – you do a great job”, to which he said “cheers me ol’ mate”.

But I suppose the real point I was aiming for here is that we are all mere humans. As such, no one is above anyone else, no one is ‘better’ than anyone else in status. I’m not talking about the moral aspect – of course I’d consider myself better than a rapist. But in status of where we are in life; NO, we are all exactly the same. You’re not better than me because you have a huge, ugly 4×4 and a 5 bedroom house. The best people I meet are people who understand this.