Burdens
[I'm going to talk about a bathroom. Don't worry, it's not disgusting.]
Today at work, I walked into the bathroom and noticed it looked like a mess. It doesn't usually look like that as the person that works on this floor who is responsible for the cleanliness of our bathroom takes tremendous pride in her work. She is also very friendly and though she constantly insists on reminding me of the ever increasing price of cheese, I'm very impressed by the job she does in that room and all the other rooms in my office.
Today, though, she must not have been at work. I took a minute and surveyed the mess. I had a little internal battle:
Wow, someone doesn't know where the trash can is.
But why pick it up? It's not your mess.
Yeah, but it's here and I saw it so now I can't just ignore it.
Yes, you can. You didn't go to college so you could clean up trash in a bathroom.
No, I didn't. But it's just a little trash.
Trash that isn't your problem.
Well, no. The trash isn't my problem. But it was there, and so was I. So I picked it up, quickly. And then washed my hands four times. Because sometimes, we share the burdens of others if for no other reason than to know that sometime, they may have shared ours, too.
9 comments:
Glad to know I'm not the only one with this compulsion. You can learn a lot about people by how they behave in a public restroom (... wait ... that didn't sound right ...).
Responsibility is a great thing. It's refreshing when someone has it, especially in a work environment when most people are looking to say "That's not my job".
Kudos.
Hmmm, I never thought about it that way. Now I feel like I just posted to say "look at me, I'm not too good to pick up trash!" Eeek.
Oh well.
It's nice to see some people still look around and notice the mess. I wonder how many people walked right by it...
I'm glad you washed your hands four times, three would not have been enough and five would have been overkill.
:-P
We know you didn't post just to say "look at me". I think you did a great thing, and I like posts like this because they remind of us responsibilities, manners and plain old respect. I especially like the respect you gave the woman who cleans your offices. Good for you!
"Labor disgraces no man; unfortunately, you occasionally find men who disgrace labor."
-Ulysses S. Grant
Whether you have a PHD or barely passed your GED this is question of ethics and methinks you passed with flying colors.
i would have cleaned it too. after i had a very similar internal dialogue.
JR, I've been thinking this one over. Ethics SHOULD be randomly rewarded (you can lecture me on how this defeats the purpose, and how ethical actions require no reward, et.al., if you like).
So starting today I'm going to randomly start wrapping $10 bills in moistened and crumpled up paper towels, leaving them on floors of various public bathrooms (both male and female).
So it will pay to keep on your toes and pick up, carefully examine, and properly toss away all moistened and crumpled up paper towels that you may encounter throughout your travels.
You'll thank me later.
I take out the trash at my work. My boss tried to make it that I didn't have to do it when I got a little promotion a long time ago, but I like it.
I feel like I can hack it and the rest of the soft-cocks can't.
Yeah - I'm takin out the trash.
Keeps me tough & surley.
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