April 25, 2:55 pm
Respect is needed for all workers
Marilyn Gardner has been a longtime columnist for the Christian Science Monitor. I have in my files an article she wrote a while back about people working in “menial labor” jobs. Here are a few snippets from that column:
By most measures, Louise Rafkin is overeducated for her work. With a master’s degree in comparative literature, she could have chosen a career in teaching or academic research. Instead, she is a housecleaner.
Housecleaner is not the kind of job title designs to fill a parent with pride after years of college education. Yet Raskin takes pleasure in banishing dust bunnies and turning her clients chaos to pristine order.
She is hardly alone in the satisfaction she finds in her day’s work. A study at Arizona State University found that many workers performing “stigmatized” jobs refused to be it sets by the negative views of others.
Too often such work becomes appreciated only when it’s not done. There’s nothing like a garbage collector strike in New York to illustrate the essential nature of menial tasks.
Rafkin observes that “people will trust nameless faces as long as they know their place.” But she also suggests that those who are served could well afford to polish their respect for those who put a shine on everything else.
This reminds me of the time I went into place of business looking for the organization’s president, with whom I had a meeting. There were several women sitting at a table, and they were dressed rather shabbily. By the way they were dressed, they could have easily been perceived by anyone as being the janitors. When I approached them I asked where I could find the company president. One of the women said “that would be me.”
At that moment in time I genuinely appreciated my upbringing.
I really like the quote that says “he who is nice to you but not nice to the waitress is not a nice person.”
Workplace excellence demands that we show respect to all workers.
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Filed in Work, Business, Opinion, Motivation, Management, Team Building, Customer Service, Workplace
Dan- there was some stuff online earlier this month about the huge shortage of household servants, e.g., in LA - nannies, chefs, butlers, etc. There are now 5-figure training programs to become household managers. Given the pay & perks, lots of these folks are highly educated which has been weird for the employers (”My chauffeur has a MFA from Juilliard?”)
HOWEVER - check out “Dirty Jobs” on Discovery Channel. “Menial” and “dirty” is indeed in the eye of the beholder - and can be quite lucrative.
All honest work has dignity, yes? (Even HR training? LOL)
LOL — yes, even HR training.
One of my fav jokes is the plumber who shows up at the home of a lawyer, gets the problem fixed in ten minutes, and then hands the guy a bill for $150. Shocked, the lawyer says “$150 for ten minutes? I’m a lawyer and I don’t even charge that much.” To which the plumber replies, “Yeah, neither did I when I was a lawyer.”
In academe, they tell us -
“Be good to your A students; if they come bac, they will be colleagues”
“Be good to your C students; if they come back, they give us buildings!” LOL