All summer long during my internship, I have made multiple visits to my building’s “micro kitchen” daily. This gargantuan snack pantry is always brimming with a rotating supply of gourmet goodies: fresh strawberries and grapes, salted edamame, Greek yogurt, several kinds of granola and cereal, fancy chocolates…you name it. It is usually also bustling with people – both those who are there to consume the bounty and those who silently, loyally deliver it.
Caught up in hunger and/or conversation, I have passively and unconsciously followed the example of my colleagues regarding interactions with the “MK Staff”: never more than a quick, distracted “Hello-how-are-you?” or a request for something.
One day, when I wandered into the MK while it was being restocked, I inquired as to whether I could put in a request for more of the delicious TCHO chocolate that had made a brief appearance the week before. Next thing I know, Tatiana* was unlocking a back supply room for me and inviting me to cup my palms; she poured into them more TCHO squares than I could eat in a week if I subsisted on nothing else. Floored and appreciative, I asked if there was a way I could share positive feedback about her above-and-beyond effort, and she pointed me to some link that she seemed to doubt I’d visit.
The little blurb I submitted later that night evidently made a big impact; when I saw her a few days later, Tatiana went out of her way to look me in the eye and thank me. I held her gaze…and the stupidly long list of things I needed to do back at my desk faded from focus as I realized how long it had been since anyone there – myself included – had engaged with her in a human way. Little robots, we got so stuck on our racetracks of doing, doing, doing that we forgot about the beauty and importance of being, and human being. In fact, we are all doing-doing-doing to make money, but the American Dream neglects to recognize that we are not all wrestling our way along an equally bumpy path in that pursuit. Those of us asking for special chocolates got damn lucky.
In a previous article, I wrote about a fun and frivolous food tour that I enjoyed in my weekend leisure time. Tatiana didn’t have leisure time that weekend; she was working her second job to keep her family fed. She recalled for me the time when she didn’t have to work multiple jobs to support her loved ones…but then Silicon Valley became such a rich-man’s land that she could not afford to remain in the place she grew up without extreme efforts. (Her situation epitomizes the overcrowding issue I wrote about earlier this summer.)
She’s one smart cookie; her career trajectory just hasn’t landed her in the crazily lucrative tech bubble in the same way. So, now instead of leveraging her contract-negotiation skills as she used to (before her job was superseded by non-Americans willing to work more cheaply), she spends her days negotiating the embittering bifurcated elitist world of the Bay Area – and somehow maintaining her humanity better than anyone as she does it.
My conversations with Tatiana, since I opened my eyes and heart, have been sustenance for my soul. She doesn’t superficially pretend things are all perfect, and yet she holds this pragmatic perspective in concert with an effervescent confidence in the goodness of the world. In her words, she takes time to “stop and smell the roses, because they smell good and for that little moment you can just smell them and be happy…and yet people just run by them, not noticing the good they could be experiencing even though it’s so easy, it’s right in front of them.” She is too humble to say this part, but she equally well could have added that I also spent all summer not noticing her because I was too busy doing-doing-doing to take the time to authentically engage with her as a fellow human right in front of me.
I craved the chocolate that started our friendship because I felt burnt-out and needed energy. Now – countlessly many TCHO squares later – I have learned from Tatiana that true energy is a latent spark in all of us that gets ignited through interaction and compassion, not unaware consumption. Thank you Tatiana for bringing a lifetime supply of chocolate to my soul.
*Her name has been changed to protect her identity.
