Ted was a talker – he enjoyed a good conversation. He was the type who never turned down a conversation he didn’t like.

It seemed he always wanted to talk to me at a time when I was busy. I tried to listen politely anyway, but I’m sure he noticed I wasn’t as patient as I should have been. I didn’t mean to be impatient, it’s just that he always liked to talk – it didn’t matter the time of day or the topic of the conversation, he just wanted to talk to anyone who was willing to listen and it seemed as though he especially liked to talk with me.

For those of you who know me, you know I’m not much of a talker. Give me a handful of jobs to do and I’m happy. To stop and talk about world events seems unproductive to me, but not to Ted. Oh, he kept busy with his job which required heavy lifting and precise planning, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to talk.

Ted rarely complained about the heavy lifting or the people he met. He told me what his job entailed but I didn’t listen. He did his job well, so well in fact I didn’t realize until several years after he retired, after I had replaced two other people who held his job, just how tough it was.

I realized how hard his job was when I had to do it myself because there was no one else to do it. The job entailed lifting heavy boxes of food, transporting them to distant locations, and handing them out to people who weren’t always as grateful as they should have been to receive the boxes. I should have listened to Ted when he told me about his job.

On another memorable day Ted stopped me and wanted to talk about an event which had just occurred. I was in a hurry going up the stairs to get to my office after returning from a meeting elsewhere. I asked Ted if it could wait and he said no and asked me to look at the television which was turned on near the stairs.

The NASA space shuttle had just exploded soon after liftoff and Ted wanted me to see it replayed on TV. I was shocked as was everyone around me. Ted and I talked about what might have gone wrong and how this tragedy could affect the future of space exploration. It was one of those days when one always remembers where he or she was when an historic event happened. Ted and I were in front of the TV and talking.

Looking back and remembering Ted, I realize now that no one is too busy to take the time to talk. Even though I like to stay busy, talking occasionally about world events, movies, or office gossip can be productive, too. Just don’t tell my boss I said that, however, as I’m not sure he’d understand about what I learned from talking with Ted.

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