thistlebloom said:
My job involves a lot of hard physical labor, and I'm pretty capable of most things, but certainly welcome a helping hand when needed from anyone willing. A few years ago one of my customers had dug out 3 mature lilacs from his yard and wanted me to plant them at his cabin. I went to his home to collect the lilacs which were at the side of his yard furthest from where I parked. I pushed my wheelbarrow through the yard, past the 4 burly construction guys working on the garage remodel and struggled to get each huge lilac into my wheelbarrow, then back through the yard and into the back of my truck. I made 3 trips past those guys who pulled up seats on buckets and lounged against the door frame to watch me. I was too shy at first to ask for a hand, and then too disgusted after they watched my wheelbarrow tip over when one of the lilacs rolled and unbalanced it. Those puppies had huge rootballs and must have weighed around 100 pounds or more. And they just watched me go through all the heaving and pulling and pushing and sweating without even the remotest offer of help. If it had been any one of them doing all of that I would have pitched in to help.
Well, I got the lilacs in the back of my truck finally and drove away puzzled and demoralized.
Thistle, I had something like this happen a year or so ago. I was at a local cabinet shop collecting sawdust/shavings. They were in 55gal drums behind the shop and I wrestled 6 of them across the yard and up the ramp into my trailer while 2 men stood at the door with their arms crossed watching me. I wanted to ring their necks. But when I was done and covered in dust and sweat, I walked over to them, dusted my hands off and said, "Ok then, is there anything I can help
yall with while I'm here?" They both blushed, and went back inside.
( I
still wanted to ring their necks....)
On another note, there are still LOTS of men who will come running when they see an opportunity to help.
Once I had a flat tire on this little back road between home and work. I almost NEVER see any other traffic on that road but that day just about the time I realized that I was in just the wrong spot to be able to get the jack under there along came a logging company work truck. Three men got out, said "Ya need some help?" and before I could even finish explaining what was wrong, they had started grabbing things off of their truck and were changing my tire. When done they said "There ya go" and hopped back in their truck. I never even got their names - I just call them my pine-scented angels.
Even just yesterday... The new flag finally arrived for the entrance to the landfill. I had planned to just replace the worn, faded one but found that the rope was in even worse shape. After we closed I went to the store and came back with rope and snaps. But the old rope broke before I got the new one up. I was poking around at the shop looking for a ladder when the mechanic saw me. When I explained what I was looking for he loaded up a 20' ladder into the service truck, took it to the flag pole and spent the next hour figuring out what had the pully jammed and fixing it.
I brought him bacon, egg & cheese busicuits this morning.
I think that sometimes it's a combination of our unwilingness to admit that we need help, and their fear of being attacked for thinking that we need help.
Want to encourage them to continue.
.
