Mike Bayley

I'm a little afraid to actually begin writing about Mike. I work with two guys regularly, and Mike is the bigger mystery of the two, yet at the same time, he really isn't. So, how do you put on the page something that is so open and yet so hidden all at the same time?

Let me explain myself. Mike doesn't talk. In fact, he speaks so rarely that at first I wondered if he was even capable of speech. I have since heard him say a few things, most common of which is "amen" when it's his turn to pray, but the rest of the time when he talks, you just have to guess at what he is saying.

Even in saying so very little, he has figured out how to communicate without words. He gestures a lot of times to give his impression of things. A salute here, a thumbs up there, and smiles, boy does this guy smile. He can almost always be seen with a smile on his face. Even when he is mad at me for making him work too hard, he has a smile on his face as he's telling me he wants me to leave and he doesn't like me. Which I maintain that he did tell me even though the ladies that I work with say I was imagining it.

Once you get used to Mike, you can understand him, but until then, he's a closed book. At first I struggled to get the simplest answers out of him, and now, I can get him to say words that I thought beyond him.

Next for him though, is work. He hates work. A lot of what we do is physical labor, and as much as I hate to compare him to someone else, he just does not put the effort forth that Robby does. Mike is very lazy when you let him get away with it. Most the time I just deal with it as best I can and be the buffer between the rising ire or Robby as he gets mad at Mike, and Mike's true inability to do some of the things that we do. Mike has his favorite days at work, and I was told about these from the start, but as I've watched him over the last few months, I realize that the reason he likes these jobs, is because he can do very little and still look like he's working hard. This keeps me off his back and also keeps Robby from getting frustrated with him.

As much as he seems to be inept, he is way smarter that at first you would give him credit for. My problem now is that I give him more credit that he really deserves. I expect a lot from myself, beyond my own abilities and I've put that standard on the guys that I work with. It leads, a lot of times, to the three of us being thoroughly exhausted at the end of the day, but you know, we get a lot done and I was always under the impression that you can't argue with results.

To finish up... I have given the impression, perhaps, that I don't really care for Mike, and at surface level, I might now, but deep down I know that I'm learning more from him than I truly expected to learn from doing this job. I have been blasted with revelation after revelation just by watching these two guys do what they can do and teaching me about the things that I can't do. I look forward to them teaching me more and continuing to work with them in the months to come.