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12th
June 2010
Friendship
and work like oil and water
 Is
your car one of those jobs which is over
three years old and is beginning to give
you trouble? Do you need a good mechanic?
Do you have a house to paint or your driveway
to fix, a suit or some furniture to have
made?
At some times in my life, I have had reason
to have one or other of the above done,
and some other relatively important jobs
as well. Most of those times, I have made
it a point to find one of my friends who
is qualified to do the work necessary,
and give him the job.
You know, support your own; charity begins
at home; why give the money to a stranger,
when it can benefit your friend; the only
way he will succeed in his chosen career
is by his friends rallying around and
giving him all the help they can; etc.,
etc., etc.
Well I don’t know whether it’s
something wrong with me, or whether I’ve
just been chronically unlucky, but doing
what I’ve described above has been
the one surefire way of diminishing my
circle of friends.
Somehow, maybe because of our closeness,
I am the one customer who can wait forever
to be attended to. Months, years pass
before whatever I need done can get done.
And nine times out of ten----as a matter
of fact I even think that it’s ten
times out of ten—the job is inefficiently
done.
So what do you actually get? First of
all, for weeks and months you have to
beg your friend. You have to keep on his
case, asking him to please, please attend
to your job, every time listening to his
excuses why he hasn’t finished yet.
Knowing that he’s bluffing; lying
through his teeth; inventing reasons which,
although you don’t believe, you
pretend that you do. You see, if you just
blow your top and let him know what you
really think, you know that you’ll
say things which will put an immediate
end to your friendship, and you don’t
really want to do that.
But after a while, even he feels embarrassed
and realizes that you’re fed up,
and that something has to be done. You’d
think that at this point, he’d finish
the job, so that things would get back
to normal between you. But no. He starts
avoiding you instead.
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So
your friendship wanes, to the point where it
becomes non-existent. And finally, when you
begin to act like, and even become perfect strangers,
he completes your job, in a half-hearted, inefficient
sort of a way, and delivers.
Now that you’re not friends anymore, he
feels perfectly justified in grossly overcharging
you. After all, what’s he got to lose?
Maybe that’s why he brought things to
this point, anyway.
And you? You’re so grateful to finally
get your car back, or your house painted, or
your suit made, etc., that you give him anything
he asks, just to put closed to the whole affair.
And you were such good friends before all this
happened. It really is a shame.
Well. I’ve learned my lesson. In order
to keep those few friends whom I now have left,
I have decided not to give any one of them anything
to do for me which is of any importance and
which is their actual line of work, through
which they earn their living. Sad, but necessary.
I’d rather have a starving friend than
a well fed antagonistic acquaintance. Anytime.
So my carpenter friend does my plumbing, my
auto mechanic expert friend helps paint the
house or build a wall, and my excellent mason
friend sews my pants. Since none of them earns
his living from what he does for me, but does
it purely in the spirit of true friendship,
it gets done right away.
I may end up with funny-looking clothes, a car
which constantly stalls on me, or in which a
wiper starts wiping when I switch the radio
on, and a crooked badly painted house, but I’m
surrounded by good friends, and that makes me
happy. After all, that’s what life is
really all about.
Discuss
Story
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