A funeral can really bring out the best or the worst in people. Having attended at least 20 by the time I was an adult, I learned this lesson at a very early age. Every time someone died, I saw leadership among the generally timid, sympathy among the calloused, and displays of impressive inner strength in otherwise vulnerable people. On the other hand, I was shocked by some of the greed that came out when some of the deceased person’s relatives thought they were going to inherit something of value.
During my short stint as a sign holder for a temp agency, I once again encountered this old familiar duality. To some, this position magnified my humanity, while to others, it reduced me to human garbage.
Allow me to set the stage…I was a 34-year-old former Peace Corps volunteer who had fairly recently earned a master’s degree and spent the previous year teaching ESL in Mexico. My quest to travel the world and expand my mind was not a profitable one, as I was nearly six figures in debt from student loans and earning very modest wages as an ESL teacher. I returned to the United States with little more than the shirt on my back, maxed out credit cards, and a mess of delinquent bills. I had also recently become a husband and stepfather but had to temporarily leave my family behind in Mexico as I tried to get my life back in order.
At first, I applied to the jobs I thought my degree and background could get me, but my standards dropped very quickly after no call-backs. Desperate for some form of income, I signed up with a temp agency that offered one day gigs for minimum wage. If you’ve ever seen a sign holder out in the streets advertising for a tax service, bail bond agency, or something of the like, chances are good that this person works for such a company.
I accepted two weekend gigs as a sign holder for a mattress shop where I would wave a sign advertising the memory foam beds that used to be popular in infomercials. To my relief, I didn’t have to dress up as King Kong or the Statue of Liberty like sign holders for other businesses sometimes have to do.
On the first day, I wasn’t the only sign holder on the block. On the other side of the street, I saw an older, wheelchair bound man with tattered military garb holding a cardboard sign asking alms from sympathetic motorists. He was missing both legs from the knee down and kept the slack from his lower pant legs neatly tucked under him, accentuating his missing limbs. It wasn’t long before a police officer pulled up, took away his sign, and ordered him to leave. When the officer drove by me without even a glance it left me to ruminate. Essentially, the only real difference between myself and the homeless vet at that moment was that I was providing a service to the shop behind me. Beyond that, we were both in desperate situations, standing outside on sidewalks, and holding up signs in hopes that they would help us put food in our stomachs.
Once the squad car left, the homeless vet began wheeling toward me as I stood between his corner and the nearest bus stop. Based on his age, I guessed he served in the Vietnam War, which he confirmed to me when he got close enough that I could read his hat. We chatted briefly, during which time he asked me if I had enough water, kindly offering me his extra bottle. This was the most I communicated with passersby that afternoon. Beyond that, a man in a white Mercedes giving me the finger as he drove by was the closest thing I had to human interaction.
The following weekend, I worked at another location for the same franchise, this time in front of a much busier street. It wasn’t long before a car whizzed by as someone yelled obscenities through the window. I put in my earbuds, hoping to tune out whatever else people might yell at me. As the day went on and the temperature rose, cars began throwing more than just insults my way, at one point almost hitting me with a water bottle which served as a spittoon for the driver’s chewing tobacco.
Later that day, a car pulled into the mattress shop and parked right in front of where I was waving the sign. A middle-aged woman got out carrying a pink lemonade she apparently bought from the Wendy’s across the street.
“I can’t believe they would have you out here on a day like today. Here, we bought this for you,” she said as she handed me the cold beverage. I later found out that the temperature indeed had gotten above 100 degrees Fahrenheit (about 38 degrees Celsius for any reader outside of the U.S.).
Some time later, the manager for that particular store came out and offered to let me go home early and signed my work voucher, which meant I would still get paid for a full day’s work. When I asked why, he explained it was because several people who had driven by the store had called and complained at him for making me stand outside with a sign on such a hot day. It was very humbling to know that people cared enough to take a moment’s pause from their daily routines and make a stand for a stranger they happened to notice holding a sign.
From this experience, I learned that people can be very cruel. On the other hand, I learned that people can also be very kind. My growing cynicism and loss of faith in humanity came accompanied with bewilderment at how beautiful humanity can sometimes be. In the way some forget they’re communicating with a human being when they write angry replies to social media posts, my distance from several passersby dissolved my social bonds to them, reducing me to the verbal and physical garbage they threw at me. But there is still enough good inside of most people that social distance and isolation has still not led to the ultimate demise of compassion. It is worth noting that we still live in a world where a homeless man will sometimes offer you his last bottle of water.
In short, though social research focuses heavily on society’s negative aspects, we should not overlook victories, no matter how small they might be.
Picture taken and selected by author.