Do you know who I am?

There was a dinner held at a state penitentiary, where a number of politicians and other VIPs were invited to see how efficiently the facility was being run. Select prisoners were chosen to be servers. One particular prisoner was serving the commissioner who ran the entire state prison system. The commissioner asked the server for an extra dinner roll. The server said, no, and explained that the wait staff’s instructions were to serve just one roll per diner.

The commissioner asked once again for another roll, and the server said no, restating the instructions – one roll per diner. The commissioner, rather irritated, said to the server, “Do you know who I am?” The server replied, “No, who are you?” The commissioner responded, “I’m the man in charge of this prison.” The server asked the commissioner, “Do you know who I am?” The commissioner answered, “No, who are you?” The server said, “I’m the man in charge of this tray of rolls and you can only have one!”

This is a true story told to me by a person I know in law enforcement. It’s a great story for people who get hung up on titles and positions. Back in the day, titles met more to me than they do now. Here in the middle ages, the only titles I really care about are father, husband and friend.

One additional thing this story shows, at least to me, is that no matter how lofty your title, there’s always going to be someone in a position to control how many dinner rolls you can have!

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