Last Friday at work someone brought her son, who brought his new puppy. In the ten minutes or so that they spent here, I noticed how the boy took care of his dog. (Think he's 4th, 5th, or 6th grade, not sure -- he's tall -- the boy, that is, not the dog...)
He held the puppy very carefully, with both hands, close to his body (no dog-dangling). Outside, the dog got set down on the pavement, and that child never took his attention away from it. He ran -- slowly, more like, trotted, or jogged, from end of sidewalk, up to the building, looking over his shoulder to see that the puppy was following. Arriving at the door, the little dog caught up, and then the kid repeated the routine, back out to the end of the sidewalk where his mom was waiting. The boy ran carefully, looking back over his shoulder, looking after the puppy as it zoomed full-speed on its short little legs.
Some children that age can't apply that kind of sustained attention, and caring, to something -- I was charmed, and impressed.
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Later on that evening, I missed the opportunity to get something right, at work -- could have been a small success -- but no, I was not thinking "outside the box." Somebody asked me to find the paychecks for their department -- in the office next to mine, paychecks are always in the bottom drawer of a particular file cabinet: for a while last year, I think, the Paycheck Location was changed, to the bottom drawer of a desk.
In the three years I've worked here, I've only ever found paychecks in those two places -- bottom drawer, desk; bottom drawer, file cabinet.
Couldn't find the checks for that dept., Fri., so radioed the guy -- he came up and got the checks off the top of a desk six feet away from where I was looking.
(Ergh!)
Asked myself later, "Why didn't I just look all over the office, and at least check tops of the other two desks?"
Thinking about it, realized I've sort of programmed myself to try not to be "snoopy," or "nosy" -- those funny old-fashioned terms.
I think you hardly hear those words anymore because the whole world is unbelievably "Snoopy" and "Nosy" -- it's like there's no privacy. (Cameras everywhere...) I somehow don't want to be a person who snoops, peeks, listens in, or gossips. (Those all seem to have a bad connotation, to me....) And sometimes you have to work at that, because most of us are naturally curious, about one another.
Going into that office next door, I feel right to look for paychecks in the usual place, their official location where I've been shown and told that I may look there. But I held back on thinking creatively and looking around other places, in the office, because of a resistance to looking at people's stuff -- being in their space. I don't know.
(Next time I get asked to look in there for a department's paychecks, I may "toss" the place! -- not really....)
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I understand completely why you looked in the two "accepted" places for those paychecks, but were reluctant to snoop in other places for them. I suppose your intent would have made a broadened search okay, but still. I would have been very reluctant to do so.
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