I learn a lot by watching the people around me. I have long been a people-watcher, and I’ve discovered that not only do I learn something about each person I watch, but I also learn something about the people around them. And often, I even learn something about myself.
Today as I walked laps around a large exercise room in my neighborhood gym, I started watching the cleaning lady carefully clean and disinfect the mirrors and exercise equipment throughout the room. I have seen this particular woman, along with a gentleman who also cleans, hundreds of times in the ten years I’ve been coming to this gym.
These two individuals carefully clean and disinfect the entire two-level gym, basketball court, racquetball courts, and exercise rooms. Together they are responsible for the overall cleanliness of the gym and hundreds of pieces of exercise equipment.
As I watched them clean today, I started thinking about how many people don’t even notice them. Not only do the vast majority of the gym members take what they do for granted, they barely even acknowledge their existence when they pass by. In all my years at this gym, I do not recall ever seeing a customer stop and greet one of these workers with a sincere and warm smile or handshake.
I have never worked at a gym. I have never cleaned exercise equipment for a living. But I have been a dishwasher. I have delivered newspapers. I have spot-welded telephones. And yes, I’ve also been a hospital CEO.
My first job as a dishwasher in my teens might seem far less important than my job as a hospital CEO at the height of my career. But no matter the title or prestige or paycheck associated with a particular job, none of that dictates the importance of the person doing the job. And no matter the title or prestige or paycheck associated with a particular job, none of that should influence the respect given to the person doing the job.
The woman I watched cleaning mirrors and wiping down exercise equipment today is more than worthy of respect and deserving of recognition, appreciation, and kindness. Her job is important. In fact, in light of the illnesses and infectious diseases that spread so easily from person to person, her job may be the most important one in the gym! No matter her title, perceived level of prestige, or number of digits on her paycheck, she is important.
Thanks, I’m sure, to my experience growing up on “the wrong side of the tracks,” and working my way through school, I learned this lesson at a young age. So in my 15 years as a hospital CEO, I always went out of my way to demonstrate kindness, respect, and admiration for those who work in jobs normally associated with lower pay and lower respect. Some of the housekeepers, maintenance staff, foodservice workers, and laundry workers were some of my very favorite people. They taught me hundreds of lessons that I could never learn in a book or a classroom.
To this day, as a leader, as a customer, or even just as a passerby, I try always to notice, acknowledge, and warmly greet every person working around me—no matter his or her position, title, or perceived level of prestige. Because no matter how ‘unimportant’ a person’s job may seem to the world, it IS important. But even more so, that person is important.
So please join me in recommitting to go out of our way to sincerely acknowledge the work and the worth of so-called “lower paid employees” who contribute greatly to our joy, our success, our happiness, and our welfare.
Never forget, they are as good as you and me, or any other human being, in the sight of the Almighty.
