Hit And Run

There are events in life that are like hit and run. You are the victim and they, the drivers who run over you and don't even glance back at what they have done. They use you and then immediately forget that you were ever there. This happens in the work place often. Privately, you give all you have to your project and it us simply taken for granted and used, and without even a thank you is turned into another person's reward. I think about the assembly line folk who put in their tiny contribution to something that requires many fingers and parts and hours and standards that have to be as close to perfect as they can be. People who do that job, take their pay and go home every week and their only true reward is to know that they have given it everything they could do to make it a success. I  think of doctors and dentists and mechanics and clerks, servers and maintenance workers who put effort into their products that are taken for granted. We expect the item to be perfect without a look back or a thank you other than a cursory word to the cash desk. The perfection in it is due to the many people who develop all the the materials, the tiny the bolts or the food growing or the myriad of selling items. We can't say thanks to them. We don't even know who put in the work or give a thought  to those who came up with the idea in the first place. We just pay the bill without thinking about who developed the nice machine that rolls the groceries along to the bar code reader or who cleans the stores shopping baskets at night or the floors we walk on in every office building. We expect perfection and if we don't get it, there is trouble. It is the same with human relationships. You can be a devoted spouse or employee or volunteer: there's a little thank you card and a cut glass bowl gift and it's all over. Out the door you go and it isn't just about the pay check reduction after retirement or a firing; it's the loss of all that you put into what you did every day for so many years. Hit and run is what it feels like. It's just the way things are and there is really nothing you can do about it. As the song goes, you pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again. Droning on about it for eons is just a waste of the time you could put into entering the next phase. Hasta la vista baby!