Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Life's Lessons

Years ago while I was working as a software engineer at a small company I was reminded to respect those who take pride in their craft...by the janitor. I had moved my pc and was wiping the dust off my desk (as any anal-retentive engineer might do) when the janitor appeared in my cubicle doorway. He was quite put out by the fact that I was cleaning my own desk. It took a bit to sink in what this man was telling me. He was quite proud of the way he did his job. Cleaning was his duty and he took it very seriously. I've thought back to that moment many times. Take pride in what you do to gain the respect of others.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

I really liked this one - I almost posted a twitter that "Greg's blogs are like zen koans" - except I'm not zen, nor do I know koans - so they are like country checkerboard stories.

Greg said...

Thanks for the feedback. I had to look up "koan" so now I'm one word wiser to boot. Maybe this would be a good place to drop some of those country quips for fun. "It was raining like a two..." Oops. Better not go there.

While I didn't respond at the time, your professional credibility story (IE hater!) and checkerboard story each struck a positive note here too.