I once worked in the warehouse of a large computer reseller, hauling heavy skids around on my pallet jack, all the while wearing steel-toed boots. Sometimes I even got grease on my fingers. If you’re thinking that I considered myself to be tough during this period of my life, you would be correct.
Like many warehouse environments, this place was filled with a plethora of interesting characters, each more colorful than the next - but none were as noteworthy as a quiet young forklift driver named Randy.
The scuttlebutt around the warehouse was that Randy was such a bitter, angry human being that he kept two objects on his person at all times:
1) a large hunting knife (supposedly always sharpened), and:
2) a list of all the people he wanted to murder, using the hunting knife, ordered in the sequence he planned to eliminate them
Everyone else had a good laugh over this, but for some reason I was the only one of Randy’s co-workers who seemed to actually take this seriously. The only way I could justify everyone’s casual attitude toward Randy was to think that it was a workplace legend, and an untrue one. Still, unlike most of the people I worked with, my job forced me to interact with Randy constantly, so I made extra sure to be nice to him. I even massaged his feet once. Not really.
“You’re welcome,” he said, very sincerely. Since he was equally mocked and feared, I imagined Randy probably didn’t get all that much appreciation from his co-workers.Anyway, months after I’d heard all of this nonsense about Randy, I had to ask him to get something out of a locked storage room and bring it back to me. I did this, and when he returned, I said, “Thanks, Randy. I appreciate it,” in my overly polite, please-don’t-murder-me voice.
He’d already started to walk away, but turned back and got close to me.
“You’re welcome,” he said, very sincerely. Since he was equally mocked and feared, I imagined Randy probably didn’t get all that much appreciation from his co-workers.
As he turned away, his jacket spun away from his body, and I caught a glimpse of what was clearly the handle to a decent-sized knife tucked in his jacket pocket.
I’m still glad I was nice to that guy.
