I had a few days this week that were incredibly busy. Wednesday was the first of them. I had work from 7:30-11:30 am, then a second job from 12:30-2:30 pm, and after that I had to go straight away to pick up a photobooth and drive it to an event, where I then worked from 4:00-10:00 pm. It was a very long day, and a very draining one.
The event I worked at in the evening ended up being in an enclosed area. As in, they were closing off several city blocks. However, when I arrived they hadn't set anything up yet. I dropped off the equipment and then asked where to park my car. I was directed to a parking lot a few blocks away, which I found out later was outside the enclosed area. Shouldn't be an issue though, right? We weren't taking down our equipment until the event was over, so surely they would let me back in. Wrong. I drove around for 20 minutes asking person after person to let me in, and every single one told me "we're not letting anyone in until everyone's out". No amount of arguing would sway them. Frustrated and exhausted, I finally went back to the parking lot I had been at earlier and decided we'd just have to push the stuff over. I get out of my car, and as I'm pulling out the dolly some random homeless guy approaches me and asks for change. I respond with "sorry, not right now," to which he responds "later then?" That was it. I officially lost it.
I turned to the guy and, no longer making an effort to stay calm, snapped, "Look, it's going to to be at least another 30 minutes until I'm finished with what I'm doing. If you want to wait until I'm done, then sure. I'll give you some change. But I don't have time for you right now." I slammed the trunk of my car shut, and starting to feel guilty I shot off a last "sorry, it's just been a rough day" as I stormed off to the event site.
As soon as I left, I regretted what I said. What if I pissed him off, and he decides to break into my car to look for something worth stealing? There's lots of people around, but that's no guarantee of safety. Not that there was anything worth stealing in the car, but paying for a broken window would suck. There was nothing I could do though, so I just went back to get the equipment. We loaded some stuff onto the dolly, and everything else already had wheels on it. Between my coworker and I, we managed to push all of the equipment the few blocks to my car. As we turn the corner to where I parked, I see a man standing next to my car. Great, I think to myself, he's still there. He's more well-dressed than I remember, but I wasn't paying that much attention to him the first time. The car looks okay though, so I suck it up and put a smile on my face. If he waited that long, he earned his change.
As we start packing the equipment, he's asking questions about what all of this is, what we do, how the event was. After I got everything secured, I dug in my wallet and found some change. I walked up to him, coins held out in front of me, and he backs up saying "Woah!" It hits me in that moment that this was not the guy that I was talking to earlier. I just tried to give change to a random stranger who was simply curious about what we were doing. He even helped us load the equipment in my car.
So, to sum it all up: I was tired a frustrated, went to give money to a homeless man who put up with me getting mad at him, almost gave money to a random nice guy. It was an odd night all around.
