Hortence

Today I took Ziggy for a walk in the park for a change of routine. I also did some housework for a change of routine. I'm now trying to figure it out if it made me feel better or not.

In my last job there was a customer who took a shine to me. Her real name is a secret but I'll call her Hortence, just because it's a crazy name. This lady had been coming to the shop long before I had been working there. Prevoius members of staff found her hard work. People can be when it comes to photos. Especially when they are important to them.

Hortence was crying out for a bit of patience and kindness. As soon as she was shown this she started coming in twice a week. She started a project of getting old family photos scanned. She had several albums and each Friday she would come in and pick out variuos photos out of particular albums. I had to write extensive lists. She would then come in on a Saturday to pick her albums up. She had no coherent pattern to which photos she was getting scanned each week, and, after a few months I had scanned every single photo from every single album. I'm not sure why she didn't just get me to do that in the first place but she seemed to enjoy doing it the way she was doing it. This went on for months. She kept chatting about the project coming to an end but it never happened. When she'd ran out of albums she moved on to loose photos. When she ran out of those she moved on to scrap books she had kept of old newspaper cuttings. When she ran out of those she moved on to old religious pamphlets she had picked up from church and bookmarks with religious proverbs on them.

Her project went on for over a year. At times I got frustrated with having the burden of serving Hortence and being the only one who knew what was going on with her order. She didn't like being served by anyone else. It kept me busy though, not only scanning her photos but fixing up all the little cracks and marks on them. And her photos were interesting. When I left she dropped in a couple of envelopes for me. I called in to get them and there was a card in each envelope. One to say 'Thankyou' and the other to say 'Good luck on your new job'. Inside one card was a photo of her and her husband. Inside the other card were some religious blessings. She has got used to me not being there anymore and, as far as I know, her project is still going on.