Selfishness is infecting our society; just check the office coffee pot

Taken from Thursday’s David Boze Show.

There is an increasing trend of selfishness expressing itself in our society. This morning I ran into a perfect example.

This morning, for probably the fourth or fifth working day in a row, I walked over and was pouring myself a delicious cup of coffee – or a bitter cup of coffee depending – and then all I would get is air. You press down on the little coffee canister there and it coughs and spews. You just get a little bit of dribble in the bottom of your cup.

I was thinking how easy it is to derail my Christian charity where at first I’m walking there thinking, ‘I love the people I work with. I’m having a great time.’
And then I hit that lever and there’s no coffee there and I’m thinking ‘Everyone here should die. Everyone here is a criminal. It’s awful.’

It’s so frustrating because you’ve got a group of people here that work very early in the morning and overnights and there’s always coffee there and everybody’s always looking for it. But for some reason, I seem to be the only one capable of opening up that pack of coffee, putting it into that little paper filter and then pressing that one button, that whopping one button that will then brew an entire pot of coffee enough for multiple employees for an entire morning. I am the only one and I don’t know why. It only takes an extra 10 seconds.

This selfishness is infecting all of us, maybe even me, and I’m not seeing it. It’s a self-centeredness that is observable in all of society. I see it every day when I go home. You can see it too. All you have to do is turn on turn signal, if you’re in traffic, and watch what the car next to you does.

I see it with pedestrians. On my way home yesterday, there was a guy in a construction vest. I’m coming up trying to make a right turn. It’s a free right for me, but I’ve got this guy looking like he wants to cross the street but the walk light is red. Not once does he look down at the car that’s trying to make the right turn but can’t because I’m not sure whether I’m going to hit him or not because he’s like a stallion at the gate trying to take off.

People don’t even bother – even if it would save their lives – they don’t even bother looking over to give a nod to the car or wave the car through.

I’ve seen one person in the last two months do something that said, ‘I am considerate of my fellow human beings and I’m going to do something for them.’

That was a woman in downtown Tacoma who at a light, jogged, she picked up her pace and jogged a little bit. Even though she had the perfect right-of-way, she saw I wanted to make a right turn so she hurried across the crosswalk.

I wanted to put the car in park, run out and embrace her, and say, ‘Thank God there is one person left in America like me who is willing to go that extra 10 second mile and put the doggone coffee in that filter to make it for the rest of the people.’

By the way, this time when I filled up the coffee, I did something a little devious, which means the selfishness is corrupting me as well.

I took the decaf canister that’s always empty and I’ve been putting the caffeinated coffee into the decaf canister because I know that nobody else will be drinking out of the decaf canister because they all think it’s decaffeinated. I just shove it back to its little cubby hole spot and it stays full and warm throughout the entire morning.

Taken from Thursday’s edition of The David Boze Show.

JS