Life Lessons: I was about 15 or 16 years old when I learned (outside the home) a true lesson about one’s work ethic.
I worked afternoons at my high school on the janitorial staff, there were about six or eight adult men on the crew, and three or four students like me. We, the students, worked about two hours a day, the adults were either full time or some were part time, I can’t remember.
This job was not the first one I had ever had outside the home, but other than shoveling snow, mowing lawns, having a paper route, working fast food, it was the first job I had where I was part of a crew like this one. The supervisor was the oldest of us all, he may have been in his late 40s or early 50s, and had worked for the school district for years. The other adults were mostly constant turnover types: they might stick around for a few days, weeks, or months. Some of us, whether adult or student, were diligent and worked, others were apathetic and listless. Either way, we all received a paycheck.
One of the men was about 25 to 30 years old, and took his job seriously. I mean, it wasn’t going to be his life’s work nor his career, but he believed in doing what was right. Every now and then, he’d harangue the supervisor for not knuckling down on the lazy people. He’d ask how was it fair that a lazy person got paid the same wage as a hard worker. The supervisor, perhaps due to the high rate of turnovers, didn’t push anyone to do his fair share. His attitude seemed to be that the money didn’t come from his o pocket, and as long as the work got done, he didn’t care that it was unevenly distributed. Of course, the lazy ones loved the situation; no one pushed them, and they got paid to do next to nothing.
The one man I mentioned above would take ribbing from the others. Everyone gave him a hard time about why he cared so much. No matter how much he ran his mouth, nothing ever changed. One day, someone asked him pointedly why it was such a big deal to him. His simple explanation hit me like an epiphany.
“When you take money from a company and don’t do what’s expected of you to earn that money, you’re stealing from the company. If you don’t want to work, be honest about it, be a man. Stay home, lie about, walk the streets, do nothing, but don’t walk into a workplace just to plop yourself down doing nothing. That’s taking money that you’re not supposed to have. It’s not a question of how much money a corporation or an industry can afford to throw away, it’s not a question of the bosses being stupid or blind, its not s question of what kind of job it is, it’s a question of your own integrity. If you can truly say every day that you have an honest day’s work, then you deserve an honest day’s pay.”
His words fell on deaf ears, all except mine. The simplicity of it made perfect sense to me. I put myself in the place of the owner, employer, the boss, the manager, the supervisor, and asked myself what would I expect from employees. To me, it only seemed right and fair that working for what you received was the right way to go. I’ve held that ethos for years now.
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Posted - October 15, 2019
Thriftymaid 