For One Week, I was Dave
My name is Andre.It's French.
Ohn-dray
That's right.
In some parts of the world it's pretty common,
but here in Australia
it's still a unique name.
It sure was when I was working as a porter at a resort
in Alice Springs.
There were no "Andre" badges in the yellow ice-cream container
with all the old badges of ex-porters.
But the rules were quite explicit,
"Name badges are to be worn at all times."
Fair enough
I grabbed a badge.
"Dave."
Some guests at hotels and resorts think it's friendly
to overuse your name.
Except the joke was on them.
My name wasn't Dave.
And yet it I felt a new sensation;
I said my name once, I didn't feel pretentious.
I was treated differently by those
who only knew me as Dave.
People knew me, because they knew the name.
Knew a Dave they liked, somewhere in their lives.
The Dave-me got the benefit of the doubt.
It's an honest name.
Dave
Say it out loud and feel the truth of it.
It's a name that means "NAME".
No muckin' around.
No fancy foreign name.
A name that gets in there and gets amongst it,
not trying to mark itself different, or higher, or better.
After a week, management presented me with
a new badge.
"Andre."
They even had the accent over the "E."
And a week after that I was nostalgic;
I'd enjoyed my holiday from my name.
For one week I was Dave.
Poetry by Blue River
Read 705 times
Written on 2009-04-10 at 01:36
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