Pockets of Sanity by Nan Brooks

Most pockets of sanity aren't this fancy.

Continuing the chain of musings about teachers…

I’ve been thinking lately about the teachers who appear at unexpected times in unexpected places. It’s like coming upon a patch of wildflowers in the woods with that revelation of color and beauty. One day, a wise woman said to me, "There is a pocket of sanity in every system." Wow.

That phrase would change my life, help me navigate situations that seemed impossible, and be a gem I could pass along to anyone struggling with a bureaucracy. I first heard it from Judith Johnston, I think. She had arranged a visit with Ann Roosevelt Johnston. It was not long after my one-woman show had premiered (fancy word for two inexpensive performances in a middle-school auditorium, but true nonetheless). Local move and shaker Charlotte Zietlow had called one day to tell me about Judith  Johston, a member of the Indiana University faculty, and her sister in law, a granddaughter of Eleanor Roosevelt. Over lunch one day, the three of us were talking about trying to find safe and helpful education for our children who did not all fit the mold that schools and teachers wanted.  One of them said, “Don’t give up; there is a pocket of sanity in every system.” I think I heard the angels sing at that moment.

Finding the pockets of sanity has made the difference in many difficult situations: emergency rooms, police departments and victim assistance offices, universities, churches.

As I think about those who were the true helpers in some highly dysfunctional organizations, I think about the qualities they shared.  I think the term “dysfunctional organization” is, like the phrase “dysfunctional family”, redundant. Most organizations are dysfunctional – it’s the nature of the beast. So, I like to search out the folks who make things work, who are those pockets of sanity. They are usually, but not always, the ones with a lot of common sense and they are often low on the organizational chart. 

When I went to work at a television station as a naive twenty-something in the early 60s, the janitor and the switchboard operator were the ones who helped me make sense of it all. Among the egos of the newsmen (nope, no women), the insecurities of the advertising salesmen (again, no women), the frustrations and powerlessness of the clerical staff (all women – go figure), these two people had all the inside information, understood the systems better than anyone else, and were unfailingly kind. To everyone, no exceptions.

Al was the janitor, and he heard everything in the studios, the newsroom, the executive suite, the break room. Al was black, so he was invisible to the white men in power, as servants and slaves have been for centuries. He knew the secrets, who was chasing whom around the desks, who was having marital troubles, who was drinking too much, when Walter Cronkite was really coming to town. He revealed very little unless it became necessary to help someone else low in the hierarchy, and even then he was sparing with the information. Al always knew when the coast was clear and he shared that information readily. Al paid attention and he knew who to trust. I can still hear his laugh these 60 plus years later. I loved to make Al laugh.

Helen was the switchboard operator and what Al might not know, Helen did. She could listen in on phone calls, but that was tricky with the old cord-and-plug switchboard because any noise in the lobby could then be heard by the other people on the line. She didn’t do it often, but she did show me how. All calls to the station, hot news tips, complaints, questions and more came through Helen. She heard a lot of complaints. The weather forecasts, the news of the day, the weather “girl’s”new hairdo and all other crucial matters were frequent topics of complaint. On the days when breaking news pre-empted a soap opera, Helen’s job became truly awful. The clerical staff, who filled in during her lunch hour and two short breaks a day, pitched in. One at at a time we would just appear at her desk and tell her we were taking over so she could catch her breath and listen to something besides loud complaints. Helen was pretty unflappable, though. She said to me one day, “Oh Honey, you take too much to heart when they yell. Everyone yells at the receptionist just because she’s the first person they get on the phone. I let them blow off some steam.”

I call it the Helen Receptionist Theory and it’s been helpful to remember it when I can. I’m still not very good at being yelled at, but Helen knew the secret to conflict resolution: everyone needs to blow off some steam now and then.

In these days when the world feels unsafe, democracy is under threat, the planet is endangered, and it’s barely safe to breathe in the grocery store, I think of Al and Helen, pockets of sanity and bearers of kindness.

Seems like a nice epitaph to me:  “She was as pocket of sanity.”

Helen was much fancier and her desk was immaculate, but this is the switchboard she used. 

(Handy for evesdropping, but clumsy in every way.)