A few months ago, when I attended a
Toastmasters meeting, I did kind of an impromptu speech on one of my
most character-building experiences that I had when I was a
substitute teacher in my mid-20s. It was my second speech since I had become a member and I decided right at the meeting that I wanted to do it.
I remember getting a call one
morning (as I normally did when I was given an assignment for the
day) and I was asked if I would be willing to fill in for a custodian
that day. As I was pondering whether I wanted to accept the
assignment or not, the lady on the line told me that she had asked
others if they would do it but everybody else declined. I'm not going to lie, my first instinct was to the do same and turn it down outright. I envisioned the nastiness and filth that I would encounter during the day, especially when dealing with a boys locker room. But as a
freelancer that worked three different jobs at the time, I knew an
extra $100 in my pocket would help me out so I accepted and reported
to my assignment.
Instead of getting a room key and
reporting to a classroom as I normally did as a sub, I collected a
set of keys from the office and headed to the boys locker room.
Apparently I was going to be filling in for the custodian who handled
the upkeep of that area. My job would be to sweep and mop the floor
of the locker room area throughout the day. There was also some
window and mirror cleaning in there as well. Later in the afternoon,
I would need to clean the bathroom area, which meant the sinks,
toilets and urinals. It was on that day that I came to truly
appreciate what custodians do for our schools and other businesses throughout the country.
It's one thing to see it but it is a completely different thing to
actually put on another person's shoes and do their job.
The faces of the students, who were used
to seeing me as a sub in their regular classrooms, were priceless but I
am thankful that they didn't poke fun at me nor did they do anything
to make cleaning the bathrooms any more unpleasant. Sure it was
humbling, but I decided to go at it with a positive attitude and
found that I actually had a good and rewarding day with it. I was able to get some good exercise for my arms and was satisfied with the job that I did. When I
had free time between periods, I was in the P.E. office talking to
the teachers and other custodians. What I thought was going to be a
disaster that one day turned into a three-day assignment that I'm
glad to have done. What I didn't know was that I had gotten such rave reviews on the first day that the substitute caller told me that they were requesting me for the next two days. This assignment not only provided some much needed money but also a
greater appreciation for some of the people in our society that are
too many times undervalued and underappreciated.
Reflecting on my 3-day stint as a custodian takes me
back to Ben, who was the custodian at my elementary school. I
remember him because he always greeted the kids and even played
foursquare with us, though he always cheated. Cheating custodians might be a good topic for another blog entry. Then I think of Matt,
who worked as a custodian at a high school I substituted for and is
now retired and enjoying life. Matt was a special guy, who had high
school graduates coming back just to say hello to him and current
students stepping over each other just to be able to tell him about
their day. When I worked in Claremont, I met custodians who had that
same glow that reminded me of Ben and Matt. And I realized, not only
do these people make the schools our kids go to look decent, they are
also the ones who many times can brighten their day.
I share this experience because we live
in a society that puts such an emphasis who makes the most money, who
gets the most attention and who holds the highest position. But many
times, the greatest workhorses of our society are the ones whose
names we will never know, the people who don't get to live in the
nice two-story house with the white picket fence and who only wear a
suit when they go to church on Sunday. We forget that without these
people and their hard work, our society can't function the way it
does and the conveniences that we have would cease to exist immediately.
Our society constantly promotes the Bill Gates, Oprah Winfreys and
Beyonces of the world but what they can do is only the result of the
efforts of others as well. We must remember that.
I have heard on many occasions people
act as if their success was of their own accord and it disturbs me
because it is absolutely impossible for somebody to be successful on
their own. Ponder that and really take time to think about it. In no way am I taking away anybody's great accomplishments, but how many people lent a helping hand in some way, shape or form along the way? A great business person needs to have clients or else
there is no business. A director of a film needs actors and a crew or
else there is no film. A company that mass produces a product needs
workers or else the company could never create enough supply to meet
the demand. A successful sports team has to surround its star player
with other good players or they won't even make the playoffs, let
alone win a championship. Even with the examples that I have provided, there are countless others that are still a significant part of those scenarios that I didn't mention. I could supply an endless amount of other
examples but I hope you get the point.
We all need each other and we all rely
on each other, whether we take the time to realize it or not. The
very people that we look down on as a society are the very people
that are vital to the conveniences and luxuries that we enjoy in
life. So, let's not look down on others and throw our nose up at
people because the work and life that they live is less than
glamorous to us. Instead, let's be more appreciative and show more
gratitude to the people who are just as much the backbone to our
society as anyone else is. They are just as important in the big
picture as everyone else.
And if we really understood this, we would
treat each other much better, wouldn't we?
We'll do this again,
LandoRigs
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