When I moved to St. Louis, it was my introduction to being permanently away from home. Another guy and I left hometown to set up life in the big city 21 hours away from anyone we knew. Finding a job was easy and we were immediately hired by a corporation at one of their large factories.
When we applied, the front main office door was locked for some unknown reason to this day, so we went in a side factory entrance door. God, that place was big. We saw a guy standing with a broom along the walkway and went to him for directions. He was about five foot six and tipped the scales at least to ninety five pounds. We asked where the main offices were and he just stood there staring at us with his mouth open.
After a few very long seconds, he looked around the factory and said "well...they might be there' (which we later found was the foreman's break room), 'or it might be there' (maintenance area), 'or it might be there' (shipping office), 'or it might be there' (employee lunchroom), 'or it might be there' (the main offices). This was our introduction to the resident dufus.
The 'dufus', whose name was Clark, wasn't handicapped, or retarded in the usual sense, he was just unbelievably stupid. I honestly wondered if he was capable of dressing himself. These are the reasons why -
We were eating in the employee lunchroom one time. They were installing a change machine and had only mounted it on the wall at the time. The door to the machine was ajar about three inches and the inserts on the face were gaping holes. We watched him walk up to the machine, stare at it reading the labels, and he then 'threw' a dollar bill into one of the holes and waited for change. After a few seconds, one of the guys got up, opened the door and reached in and handed him his dollar.
Another time, the general manager had all employees in the lunchroom for a meeting during which he said there would be no more going into restrooms and standing around smoking. Now, dufus cleaned the restrooms and later that day we noticed chairs missing from the lunchroom. A supervisor found that he had taken about ten chairs and placed them in the restroom for the smokers so they wouldn't be "standing". He had taken the manager's talk as meaning they shouldn't be standing, but sitting.
One day he was sweeping, walking bachwards, and fell off the loading dock.
He got his foot stuck in the rollers of an electric moving pathway for stock. He had never noticed there were 'walkways' across about every twenty feet. It took maintenance two hours to get him out.
He walked up to a manager one time complaining about a 'dangerous' employee. He had walked alongside a forklift and the driver backed up and ran over his toes. The driver didn't see him, so he went forward and ran over them again. Dufus didn't move, so the driver backed over them a third time. The manager took him to the nurse station, there was no damage due to steel toe boots and scrap cushioned the weight.
He was never without a broom. It was the only impliment he could handle, if he didn't get himself killed, that is. I asked the personnel manager once why they hired him. He said any employees were hard to come by for all companies in the area. If an applicant had two arms, two legs, and looked warm, they hired them. They had talked to this guy about letting him go, but Clark begged them to let him stay. It was the only place that had ever hired and kept him. They didn't have it in them to let him go (what a difference from today, huh?).
Everyone felt for thy guy, and worried and looked out for him. He was there when I left. I still wonder about dufus. Did he stay there permanantly? What was his life like? He was the type to walk in front of a car on the street.
I'll never know.
beyondtheveil posted on Jan 12, 2009
| views: 151
Comments
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uniquely-ironic said on Jan 12, 2009....
when you meet someone like this it sure does make you feel much luckier to have at the very least common sense. It's good that this guy ended up where someone would at least keep an eye on him. -
fragglesrock said on Jan 12, 2009....
i feel bad for the guy! poor dufus :( at least he had a job huh? -
GrapeKoolaid said on Jan 12, 2009....
The picture you paint with your words is a stark contrast to the way things are now, like you mentioned.
Today we have graduates with advanced degrees standing in the unemployment lines, wondering if they can eat their degrees.
Though I feel bad about the poor simple fella, I can't help but be warmed by the heart of the factory owner and the way things were. Thanks much for this post.
P.S. This is the kind of the post I was thinking of when you put up your post about missing bloggers. I've always thought you wrote well.
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beyondtheveil said on Jan 12, 2009....
unique- If he'd had a scrap of common sense, it would have helped immeasurably. It would at least keep him alive in traffic.
fraggles- We felt bad for him too. I've never forgotten that company for keeping him employed. And a corporation, no less.
grape- The situation was unbelievably different. In those days the want adds were separated. Under 'employment for men' in the Sunday Post Dispatch, there were 47 pages for jobs when we were looking. Large companies had small trailers in mall parking lots with people trying to recruit workers. Some of the ones I remember were Ford, McDonald-Douglas, and Monsanto.
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beyondtheveil said on Jan 12, 2009....
anybody- Do you have trouble editing posts? I noticed mistakes in this post after posting and can't edit. The backspace to change anything doesn't work. -
diabolicdame said on Jan 12, 2009....
I feel for him.. Its so heart warming to hear about everybody's reaction to him and people looking out for him.. I hope dufus had and is having a happy life.. we can all be happy, smart or stupid.. he sounds like a lovable fellow too. :-) -
MsStar39 said on Jan 12, 2009....
It's like they say, God looks after Babies and Fools. -
RollingC said on Jan 12, 2009....
I think that we've all had our chance to be both stupid and smart. But to have no common sense like that is sad because you don't know if it's a physical condition or a mental (psychological) one.
I knew a guy in the workplace once who was something like that and let me tell you that this guy had degrees on biology like crazy. He actually belonged in a lab working for a pharmaceutical company or the government and making the big bucks.
But something happened I think and he got divorced and back then his life was just like the ' dufus ' that you talk about.....only this ' dufus ' had a master's degree.
Another one that I saw before was a short-order cook with a dizzy look on his face and you could tell (by just looking at his face) that the guy was a dummy. And then much to my surprise I learned that the 'dummy' had a master's degree in mathematics.
Surprise, surprise.....
Rc
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silver_phoenix said on Jan 12, 2009....
beyond- poor dufus! as for the editing, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. something to mention to SoulCast i guess. -
beyondtheveil said on Jan 12, 2009....
diabo- I have both smart and stupid times, so does my wife. We can't figure this out. We pull some real doozies sometimes. They're great for laughs, though.
phoxy- Between me, my computer, and SC, its a wonder I can even be on here. I can't post videos either (not my fault!!).
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scipio said on Jan 13, 2009....
It takes all sorts of people to make up this world. Feel sorry about him ! -
hotaka said on Jan 13, 2009....
Amazing but the stereo types from comedy movies do exist. It is remarkable that someone like him reached adulthood without getting killed or killing himself by mistake. It's nice that people were concerned enough for him to care and I think he wouldn't have been hired anywhere else, at least not for long, so I am glad to read the company had sympathy for him. But still it makes you wonder how people like that get through each day.
I have a student who just sits there in every class looking at his finger nails, staring at his eraser, or looking at the floor. I explain to the students what to do and once everyone understands they go to it. But he just looks and says, "I don't know." I show him what to do and he does what I show him but as soon as I leave to check another student's work he stops and looks at his eraser again. He can't understand to go to the next step on his own. He can't remember his birthday, forgot his mother's name, and answers "I forgot," when I ask what he did today or what he ate for lunch. During the summer he went on a camping trip and he had to draw a picture in class. He didn't know what to do. I showed him how to draw a tent and a river and trees. Then I said he should draw himself in the picture. I asked if his parents came and where they were in the picture. He didn't know. I asked if they were in the tent. He said yes. Then later I asked his mother about the camping trip and she said only he went with his class. Mom and dad stayed home. The poor guy needs to be guided every step of the way.
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beyondtheveil said on Jan 13, 2009....
star- I've heard that too, but it could be done better.
rolling- Its true that so many people can fool you. I've seen it work the other way also, meaning people who I initially though were sharp as a tack due to degrees and such turned out severely lacking.
scipio- We did feel that way, and watched out for him.
hot- It sounds to me like he needs to be in special education. Does he qualify, or do they have special ed over there?
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hotaka said on Jan 13, 2009....
Well, our school is just a private English school. The parents choose which class they want him in. We actually don't have special ed classes but maybe at the schools they do.
Comment on "The resident dufus."
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