What would you do?

I always wondered what I would do when faced with celebrity. Would I drop to my knees and praise them? Would I ignore them? Would I treat them like a human being? I always thought ... hoped ... I would do the latter. Treat them like the person they are and just go one with life. Today I got to find out what I would do.

The problem with celebrity is people think they own you. You just can't have a "normal" life. You can't go to the corner store. You can't pick up the newspaper. You can't go into public at all, in any way. Which is pretty fucked up. They just can't live their life as anyone else. It is as if they stop being a person because they have become a celebrity for whatever reason.

I remember when I was training for a job at Convergys. We were finally taking REAL calls. The guy beside me, who was surprisingly enough training to be a supervisor and broke so many rules, took a call. It turned out that it was from Bobby Orr. If you have read/know anything about me I LOVE hockey. That would be the call of all calls for me. The guy responds ... Robert Orr ... Robert? ... Bobby? ... Bobby Orr?!? And the call progressed from there. I felt ... hard to put into words ... but a good part of it was embarrassed for Bobby Orr. He called to get something done with his phone account and got more because of who he is/was.

Come to today at work. A guy wants to come in and I have to check his ID. It turned out he is the captain of our local QMJHL team. A team which won, in a sweep, the 1st round of the playoffs in a sweep the night before. I sort of recognized him and once I saw his ID it was confirmed. What do I do? Acknowledge he is of age and let him in like anyone else? Acknowledge who he is and let him in? Fawn all over him? Ask for his autograph?

Surprising even me, I acknowledged he was of age to come in and let him in. Just because of who he is doesn't mean I have to single him out. He has as much of a right to just be who he is as anyone else. Part of me wanted to do more but you know what, he deserves to be treated like a human being. Like anyone else. So I held back and just let him in.

It is kind of funny now to look back at it. I always wondered what I would do in a case like that. I always figured I would play it cool, treat the person like anyone else and just go on with things. Nice to know that is what I would do.