Simon isn’t really listening to the radio. It’s just a gentle babble easing him into wakefulness.
He’s about to turn it off when he hears a familiar voice. It’s president Obama. Talking about Nelson Mandela, who has recently died.
“Never discount the difference that one person can make.”
He’s not sure if Obama is talking about Mandela, or quoting Mandela. It’s doesn’t really matter. Whichever one of them it is they’re talking rubbish.
Simon hits the off button and finishes getting dressed in silence. He thinks about his day. He knows what’ll happen. It’s the same every Monday.
It’ll start with a pile of receipts. One by one he’ll tick them off on the computer and add them to the folder. The folder will go back onto its shelf and wait to gobble up more receipts next Monday. At the end of the month the folder will close for the final time. It’ll sit on the shelf for another couple of months before being moved to a filing box and disappearing to the basement.
It’ll sit there for at least ten years. Gathering dust. Never opened unless the company suffers an audit. That’s unlikely, and even then the chances of that particular folder being checked are remote.
It’ll take him all day – like it does every Monday.
The queue at the coffee shop is shorter than usual. Simon arrives at his desk five minutes early. He looks at the pile in his in-tray. What if he just picked up all the receipts and stuffed them straight into the folder? He could use the select all button on the computer and accept everything without even bothering to check.
It takes three minutes.
He’s not even supposed to start work for another minute and he’s already finished. He’s done the whole of Monday’s work in three minutes.
On Tuesday he will spend all day doing invoices. He doesn’t make them. All he does it tick a little box to tell the computer whether or not the invoice has been paid. If the company bothered to link their computer to the bank it could all be automated. When that happens he’ll have nothing to do on Tuesdays. He wonders what Obama does on Tuesdays.
Obama makes a difference but Simon is not sure he does.
But maybe he misunderstood what Obama was saying.
“Never discount the difference that one person can make.”
Maybe he meant there’s one special person who makes all the difference. If that’s true then he’s sure whoever it is doesn’t work for Dental Plan.
By Monday lunchtime Simon has already completed over half of Tuesday’s work. He couldn’t think what else to do. He leaves the office five minutes early for his lunch break.
The sandwich shop has run out of his usual cheese and chutney. He chooses something else but realises it has a messy filling so he decides to eat it in the park instead of taking it back to his desk.
“You got any spare change for a cuppa?”
Simon shakes his head and walks quickly past the man sitting on the floor. He stops. Feels inside his pocket. Lifts out a handful of change and selects a fifty pence piece. As he walks back to the man he adds a pound coin to his selection and then another. Simon knows the price of coffee.
The strange sandwich taste really good. Maybe it’s because he feels good for making such a difference to the homeless man. He imagines how his few coins will cause an avalanche of change. Maybe when the homeless man goes to the coffee shop he’ll get chatting to someone in the queue, who happens to have just inherited a house and will offer it to the homeless man. He’ll move in and start to paint the walls. But it won’t be ordinary decorating. The homeless man will produce a masterpiece. Eventually the painting will sell for millions and the whole wall will be removed to preserve it like a Banksy.
“You still here?”
The man shrugs.
“Are you really homeless?”
The man doesn’t answer. Simon walks away.
He’s not sure what to do with his afternoon. He’s finished the invoices. He can’t do Wednesday’s work. That involves a team meeting and he can’t do that on his own. Thursday is report day – but he can’t do the reports until he gets given the figures on Wednesday.
He spends an hour doing Internet research, prints out a load of information and takes an afternoon coffee break.
“Here,” says Simon.
The homeless man takes the pages and looks quizzically at them.
“You can read, can’t you?”
“Look mate, being homeless doesn’t make you stupid.”
“It’s a list of jobs. All within three miles of here. Why don’t you get a job and do something useful with your life.”
Simon turns away quickly and rushes back to his desk. He’d spent ages making that list. It wasn’t easy. He’d even had to talk to people on the phone. He’s not sure how to spend the rest of his afternoon. He starts looking at houses. There are loads. But realistically even if the homeless man got a job he isn’t going to be able to afford a house.
“Here.”
“You again.”
“It’s a list of hostels. Places you can spend the night.”
“I got a place.”
“I thought you said you were homeless.”
“Yeah. But that doesn’t mean I can’t find somewhere to spend the night. What do you want me to do? Sleep on a bench?”
“If you’re not homeless you shouldn’t be begging. That’s misrepresentation that is.”
“You haven’t a f…ing clue have you mate?”
Simon thrusts the list back at the man. The man bats it away.
“You’re a drain on society.”
“Piss off or I’ll get you for harassment.”
“At least I’m doing something usefull with my life.”
“Yeah right. Your job changes the world does it? Makes a difference, does it? Makes things better?”
Simon scoops up the list of hostels and dumps it in the bin. He then pulls it back out. He’ll put it in the recycling. He does his bit.
The next day the man has gone. But there’s some writing on the path where he usually sits.
“You can’t make a difference,” it says.
Surely that’s not true. Maybe Simon made a difference to the homeless man. Maybe the man did get a job. Maybe he is actually a brain surgeon and all he needed was Simon’s encouragement to push him back to work. He’s probably already performed two life saving operations this morning. On kids, with cancer.
Simon’s own life is back on track. He’s had the team meeting. He started on the sales reports. It’s been a good week. The sales team have done well. More people have signed up for the dental plan. That means more dental receipts for Simon to file on Monday and more invoices to check on Tuesday.
Simon does his bit. Without him the company wouldn’t be able to take money off people. The dental plan would collapse. He’s saving lots of people from a whole world of pain. Surely that’s enough.
The chalk writing where the homeless man sits has been changed. It no longer says you can’t make a difference. It now has a full quote from Barack Obama. It says “Don’t ever believe you can’t make a difference. You have.”
Simon stares at it. He’s there a whole two minutes. Finally, he shakes his head.
“You haven’t met me Obama. If you had, you wouldn’t say that.”
Simon walks out of the park. He’s going to take the afternoon off. He’ll phone in sick. He doesn’t notice the two men watching him.
The homeless man turns to Legless Larry.
“I think I got him.”
“I’m sure you did. I could see it on his face.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“You can’t tell. But you’ve sown the seed brother. That is one man who no longer sits comfortably in his own skin.”
“Do you think it will make a difference?”
“Who knows? We can only hope. But you won’t get to see it. I need you back in the City.”
“The City? I can’t go back there. Working there is what burned me out in the first place.”
“Don’t worry. I need you on the street not in an office. There’s a banker that needs a poke. He passes St. Paul’s cathedral at 7.15 every morning. Sit on the steps and see if you can work out a way to get inside his head.”
The homeless man walks home, smiling. He’ll take tomorrow off. Have a long weekend and then start his new assignment on Monday morning. It’ll mean an early start. But he doesn’t mind. Not when he knows the difference one person can make.