Sweet Ginger and Peach

When I requested my first cup of coffee, at 11:21am, she scowled at me and barked a "hrmph" in response to my morning greeting. She'd already been on that train for 5 hours, and cheery was not her middle name.

An hour later, I plopped myself down in the Cafe car to begin the 400+ pages of reading that I needed to complete. She was still bustling around, oscillating between sitting in slow spells, and dolling out overpriced train foods during the lunchtime rush.

Sitting there, for the next 9+ hours, I was struck by the different interactions taking place in that car. Every time she would sit down, someone would come up, needing, life or death, their cheap quality but supremely overpriced beverage. Customers weren't rude per se, but they had an agenda and their interactions with her were limited to seeing their needs met. Any thought to her was secondary, if that. Barely a cursory hello. She was, in essence, nameless, faceless, and identity-less to them. I found myself picturing Rosie the robot-maid from the Jetsons.

Yet, in the course of 9+ hours together, especially after being locked in the Cafe car together over the stopover in NY, my understanding of her really morphed.

She was on the second half of her 3 day work week: a 17 hour train ride down to Newport News from Boston, 4 hours of sleep, and then back up again. She would go home and sleep for 4 days, and then do it again. And again. And again...

She had been a flight attendant until 9/11, on duty that day, but in her words "I was done that day" and "oh honey, working on a train is so much worse than a plane!" She'd been everywhere in the world, but her favorite location was a small town in the northern part of England, right across the Channel from Paris.

She had three sons, nine grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Her husband was gone.

She loved fruit flavored teas, not coffee.

She was brisk, but not unkind. She was merely doing her job, with people who could not, or just chose not to, see her. My favorite was the woman who wanted her to hold her trash because she desperately had to use the bathroom after consuming four beverages in rapid fire. All this, while standing next to the trash can. And I was struck by how often I say hello, but don't really see the person serving me. I am more concerned with my famished need for a $20 hot dog or a cup of coffee than the story of the person serving me. I don't even make eye-contact a third of the time. My take-home for the day?

People in public service are people too. Treat them as such. Everyone has a story, and their actions make far more sense when set in the context of their narrative.

When we arrived in Boston, we parted ways. She gave me two of her favorite fruit flavored teas (Sweet Ginger Peach) and said, "I'll see you soon!" I replied, "I'll look for you next time I take the train." We weren't friends, but I felt like we had seen each other, face to face, not just in passing.

I only wish I had asked her name.