I’m invisible, I’m convinced of it, but this is not a rant…I’m going to tell you about a phenomenon that just is…

I went to the plumber’s merchants and was first in the door, nobody else was in the shop. I had a simple enquiry about a washing machine pipe and a coupling. My pal Dave followed me in as we had gone there in his car. I got served but the lady was new and inexperienced, she needed her colleague who was on the phone, this is bump one. Bump two is that her colleague, the expert, then walked right past me and started talking to Dave, but that’s okay though because he drove us here so he can go first, the order hardly matters as we will exit together. Into the shop comes a plumber, the lady turns her attention to him instead, she knows him. So now we’ve both been bumped, number three for me. Eventually Dave has his products and his advice, the plumber has been sorted out too, and just as I think I might be about to finally get the advice/product I need, another punter walks into the shop. “Can I help you” the inexperienced employee asks? The punter tells of his woes finding a pipe long enough for a specific bathtub shower, expert employee hears this and decides to intervene. “You need a special pipe, we don’t do that one but the one we do will not fit”, seems it’s something to do with european fittings. This is bump four, and finally I get to ask for what I needed. I figured the only reason I got spot five was that nobody else walked in and the phone didn’t ring.

This happens to me in bars too, and always in the same way. I arrive at the bar, order in mind, cash or card at the ready. The bar-person seems to spot me okay but must conclude I am a person who likes to wait. He/She serves the people that were already there when I arrived, the folks that arrived at the same time as me, and then whomever arrived after until there is just nobody else to serve other than me, and even at this point something may happen to prevent it, like another employee comes along and a conversation is needed, or a distraction on the bar TV, or there is another task that was pending their attention before they interrupted it to serve the punters. I have very often found myself returning to the table of thirsty pals, to explain that somebody else needed to go to the bar instead, because I’d been there about fifteen minutes (feels like a lifetime though) and just couldn’t get served. How embarrassing is that?

When I lived in London, years ago now, it was impossible for me to get a taxi, and that’s easy. You just put your hand up and one stops, but over and over again they would drive by and pick someone else up that was further down the street. Yet when I was in company and someone else put a hand up a taxi would arrive like Jensen Button was piloting it! 

On a trip to France with my ex-wife’s family I stood in a bakery vying for the attention of the server, we were all placing our orders separately, they had all been served and I was next I thought. We, a group of about five of us, seemed to have the exclusive attention of one of the servers and I anticipated receiving a delicious French pastry the likes of which you cannot get here in Britain. Upon what I thought, wrongly it turned out, my turn, the server said something to the person behind me and then set about preparing their order. I decided to leave, telling the people I was with that I’d changed my mind, I didn’t fancy the sugar.

When I speak my thoughts in a workplace I many times have them resurface as someone else’s idea a couple of weeks or months later, and they will be delivered as if they are new information. If I do something that has impact I will often bear witness to someone else being rewarded, or praised in company, for the good result “their efforts” had garnered. I don’t have much of an ego, my wages are my reward and my validation, and I don’t much care about being recognised or thanked overtly, but this one stings bit sometimes. Ok, so maybe I have a little bit of a need for validation.

This is me, this is how my day goes, this is how my life goes really. It’s a weird phenomenon and I cannot explain it other than to say that there must be something about me in particular that makes other people not consider that I am to be addressed, or attended to with any urgency, or at all maybe? I am just invisible nearly all of the time. This is not a melancholy post, nor is it a whinge or a grab at sympathy, it’s just a fact I’m well used to. I do occasionally talk to much or offer too much to simply get heard, I break into conversations without waiting for the opportunity to arise, so I’m rude I suppose.

I get Em to attract the attention of the waiter in the restaurant because by the time they got to my table there’d just be a skeleton sitting in clothes on the chair.

Invisibility, my superpower!

Paul S Wilson