A Sincere Emotion

His smile had an attractive quality, the smile of a man of the world who used it, not to cover his words, but to stress the audacity of expressing a sincere emotion.

“Congratulations, you’re hired. You can start on the 17th, yes?”

That would show the bosses how it’s done, the foreman thought. Another no-good bum I hired to fill the department with my kind of people.

The city sanitation department is not where one comes to work if one likes to work. And it is not a sought-after job either. So what if someone wants to work there? You don’t need to like it. You only need to follow instructions. What’s in the job anyway? Why should someone revere it? Doing the job well is not in the job description. The job needs only bodies and muscles, not brains or loyalty. What if some people are lazy and slack at their workplace? Chalk it up to on-the-job injuries and get worker’s compensation? People working in sewers are only so many feet away from themselves living in the sewers. It’s only human.

You are disgusted now. Wait till management dangles the prospect of getting job security, a cushy pension if you get stuck in the sewer long enough, and other perks like picking shifts of your choice. Then you will start not being bothered by the stench — other people’s stench as well as yours — that you have to deal with.

On and on, the foreman thought. As foreman, he was paid to sit at a desk and think such things. That was also his way of stretching out a task over as much time as he could. That’s how it’s done. He was putting off all the paperwork he needed to fill out to onboard the new hire.

Amidst all the busyness of all that thinking, not once did the foreman pause to figure out what the new hire was actually disgusted about.