Eavesdropping

As a technology person I work at coffee shops a lot. I usually try to avoid listening in on other peoples conversations – mostly out of respect for the privacy of other people and partly because I just don’t want to know. In this case I looked up from the tedium of entering time for customer billing and I couldn’t help but hear a young couple discussing options.

It seems the young man had lost his job and I believe the young lady was also out of work or working random jobs. They were adding up the money they had and trying to figure out what to do in the long term. According to her $700 a month in rent was the real killer. She was mentioning that it is possible their situation could go on for many months. She asked if he even wanted to stay in the bay area.

I have to admit it was breaking my heart to listen to them talk. I could see it in the guy’s face. He didn’t see any options. They were going in circles because they could see no real good options. She’s talking about the future and neither of them really knows what to do about today.

Heavy sighs all around. Talking about swimming upstream. Dejected looks.

Having lived in San Francisco for quite a while I know that there are always people in this type of situation. What makes this couple different to me is that they look like a middle of the road couple who do things by the books. The economy is catching up to everybody. Even though there are reports claiming it is getting better I see a lot of people who just don’t buy it.

I feel lucky today that my complaints are about having to do the administrative work of billing my customers for my time. I have customers. That puts me miles ahead. What are they going to do?