An Very Small Slice of Life

      I took my car to the Toyota dealership today for a routine check-up, oil change and tire rotation. As it wasn’t a long service, I sat in the waiting room, sipping coffee, and read the two most recent Wall Street Journal. I perused the sections, read some articles, and clipped others that will help illustrate concepts to my students in microeconomics, quality, IT, and operations management with real life, current, examples.
     As I read the sections, I put them on the floor next to the easy chair I had nestled into. When I was done, a fellow stopped and asked me, “Are these your newspapers.” I looked up and noticed he was a rather executive looking fellow about my age. I am guessing he was from the subcontinent. I answered, “yes, they are but I am guessing you really want to know if you could take and read them.” He responded, “Yes, if I may.” I said, “Of course, I am done with them. Just know I have ripped out several pages and kept an entire section.” He said something about me “doing busy work to pass the time” and then gathered up the papers and walked off. 
     I got up to get a cup of coffee after finishing reading the article by Jason Gay on whether or not Tom Brady was going to retire, stay with New England, or sign with another team. I would never have noticed that the newspapers were gone except of the fact that this fellow who took the papers left the two plastic bags the papers were delivered in on the floor. 
     It struck me as odd. The plastic bags were in between the various sections I had folded and placed on the floor next to the chair. This means that this fellow had to pick up the papers, separate the plastic bags, and drop them back onto the floor. Why didn’t he just toss them away?
     The fellow was sitting at table on my way to the coffee urns and the trash can. As I neared him, I noted, “You took the papers and left the plastic bags for me to throw away?” He looked at with a gaze that I interpreted as a mix of sheepishness and not giving a damn. He didn’t say a thing. I proceeded to get my coffee thinking only I will probably blog about this guy. 
     I wasn’t mad. Truly, I was feeling quite content, chill in today’s parlance, just coming out of the Christmas break. It just struck me, as mentioned, odd. Odd enough to get me to blog about it (yeah I mentioned that too). Things strike us as odd simply because someone else’s behavior is different than our own in an unexpected way. It is the unexpected part that makes it odd (OMG what an insight). 
     The truly odd thing about this little slice of life is that I am focusing on this small, insignificant, thing rather than deal with the escalating tensions between the US and Iran after we assassinated General Qasem Soleimani in Bagdad. Will there be retaliation? Will there be war? I just don’t want to deal with that today when I am still basking in the glow of my great trip to Los Angeles. 
     Tomorrow? I will start working on getting ready for the Spring Term that begins a week from today and, yeah, reading about what the pundits are thinking about this Iran thing.