"Between the ages of twenty two and twenty five after I came back from a few years spent in Canada I returned to Harrison Gardners Dyeworks in Hightown as a working foreman in charge of the peroxide white department. At the time I had left, I'd been its shop steward and soon after my return, I accepted a position as working foreman in a department that needed turning around more productively. There were three men under my supervision and one of them was an experienced worker called Keith. In truth, Keith's extensive knowledge of the peroxide process should have indicated him as being the most suitable person for the post. However, he had entirely the wrong temperament to be a working foreman.
From the start, Keith, seemed to resent this younger and more inexperienced workmate being placed in a position above him although he clearly kept his views to himself. When he saw a mistake in the making about to happen, instead of forewarning me and the other two work mates, he would just sit back, let it happen and gloat.
Upon meeting each morning, all four work comrades would say 'Good morning' but none of us ever received a good morning in return from Keith. On the few occasions he did reply, his answer would be filled with sarchasm or peppered with negativity. I don't think I once saw him smile and all day long he carried around this miserable 'hang dog' face.
With regard to his work, there wasn't a harder grafter at Harrison Gardners and I couldn't fault him on either effort or quality. For most of the first year I genuinely tried to engage him in conversation and a laugh and a joke, but he wasn't having any of it. Even when Christmas time came around and we wished him a Merry Christmas, I was gobsmacked to receive the reply, 'Get Stuffed!' He refused the small presents that we'd got for each other and went home at the end of the shift instead of joining us across the road at the 'Shoulder of Mutton' for a Christmas drink.
We never did learn the reason for his negative attitude and then for some strange reason recently while I was writing my current romantic novel where the heroine worked at Harrison Gardners Dyeworks and was a person who'd grown to hate Christmas, Keith came to mind.
It is sad whenever we come across anyone who refuses to share the happiness and sadness of the people around them. Life's journey is always much easier and more pleasurable to travel when we do it in the company of others who surround us daily.
I do not know what it is that makes one person prefer their own company at all times in their lives, but I do know that such people exist. I do feel that people who cannot accept the expressed love of another has probably never felt loved themselves.
While I never liked the quote of the boxer Mike Tyson when he said, 'Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth', it could be that Keith's life-long hang-dog look accounted for having been emotionally punched too many times in the past." William Forde" February 28th, 2018.
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