Scott
I saw a guy on the bus the other day who looked like Scott. I wonder what that guy is up to nowadays.
Hmmm? Oh, you want to know who Scott is. Fair enough.
He was my boss at the first election I worked at. Nice guy. To be honest it felt like we were the only 2 normal people in that office sometimes. He was nice, friendly, organized, confident, and funny. At the risk of sounding immodest he reminded me of myself. We would get Subway for lunch and do crosswords together. At work we had similar goals, worked hard for something we believed in, and enforced the law.
I don’t think there’s anything weird about these bonds we form with people we work with. In the kinds of jobs I’ve had that I’ve really believed in there’s always been a central event you work up to. You rely on the other members of the team to help get things ready and when the day finally comes they’re your comrades in arms.
Edgar came by to get a nametag the other day and it amazes me how quickly we fall back into that kind of professional familiarities. He mentioned how he plans to use my old cell network if the phones crash on opening day and we traded stories and gossip. Is it weird to paraphrase You’ve Got Mail and say there are times when I miss those guys so much it hurts?
And earlier Peter came by, I’ve been fortunate to be there the last couple times he’s come for his ID. We also so easily and quickly fell into that lockstep and conversational shorthand that comes from shared service. Does it ever really go away?
In both of those conversations the regret that we weren’t still working together seemed almost palpable in the air. If it weren’t for Scott I don’t know that I would have considered it possible somewhere else.
