In Which The Asda Man Teaches me a Life Lesson

One of the things I really enjoy in life is thinking that I am a pretty decent person. I can’t tell you how much pleasure it gives me. I sit about and say to myself, ‘You know, you really are quite decent.’ I would be incredibly happy if, after I died, someone said, ‘She was pretty decent and she tried her best.’ I’d also like it if they mentioned the hats. I’m very proud of my hats.

And here is one of the things that pretty decent people don’t do: they don’t make assumptions. My dad taught me that, not by word but by example. He took people exactly as they came. If they made him laugh, he loved them. If they didn’t, he didn’t. (He didn’t hate them. I don’t think he was capable of hate. But he could not love the bores.)

This morning, I realised that I make assumptions all the time. 

I’d just got back from the farrier when the Asda man arrived. He is one of the very nicest of all the Asda drivers and I was pleased to see him. The sun was shining and we smiled madly at each other and talked about the autumn colours. Darwin the Dog and Stan the Man, equally delighted to see this beaming human, came out to say hello. 

There was something about the way the Asda Man spoke to them and handled them that struck me. 

‘You really know dogs,’ I said.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, smiling more broadly than ever. ‘I used to work dogs.’

Working dogs well is one of the skills I admire the most in the world. I am slightly in awe of people who can work dogs. So I shot my eyebrows up into my hat (today, a rather fetching Scottish bonnet sort of article) and asked him more.

It turns out he used to work attack dogs for the Ministry of Defence.

Attack dogs! For the MoD! That is so hard core that I practically fell over. 

I wish I’d had time to ask him more, but all the groceries were unloaded by this stage and he had to go to his next delivery. 

We beamed at each other some more. 

‘I’m always pleased to see my regular customers,’ he said, and I felt the human warmth coming out of him like sunshine on a dark day and I wondered how many people he touched, every single day, with his kindness and his friendliness. 

But here is the assumption part. I was profoundly surprised by his revelation. I realised that I didn’t expect someone who drives a delivery truck to have been a hot-shot attack dog supremo. Which means that I must have a whole subliminal box-set of expectations about the kind of people who deliver goods. 

I sternly asked myself: what are those assumptions? Well, I suppose it’s a comparison thing. It’s not performing brain surgery or doing physics. It’s not one of the headline-act pursuits, like training the winner of the Gold Cup or playing Hamlet at the National Theatre. 

Now I stop to think of it, I realise that it must require a fairly demanding set of skills. You’ve got to be able to deal with difficult people, and be prepared for emergencies, and keep calm and carry on. I imagine it requires an ability to improvise. You’ve got to work those funny little hand-held computers and not panic when the machine says no. If you are really good at it, like your man today, you will make it more than just a job, and sprinkle a little happiness wherever you go. 

And I had just put it down as one of those ordinary, everyday jobs that I don’t stop and think about for a single second. 

There was nothing ordinary or everyday about that gentleman. He was rather an extraordinary human being, and he’d clearly led an out of the ordinary life. 

And he taught me a lovely lesson. From now on, I’m going to treat everyone as if they were a professor of neurobiology or someone who knows every last thing about trees. There is no such thing as the ordinary or the everyday. Everyone has surprising talents and remarkable character traits and unexpected back-stories. And everyone is more than the daily work they do. 

I think that I knew that in my head, but did not quite feel it in my heart. My subconscious was stuffing complex human beings into neat, reductive boxes. That is not what my father taught me. I know better now.