I don’t know about you, but lately I’ve witnessed too many people not caring about their jobs and not making an effort to even try.
Just the other day, I stepped up to the cashier in a local store to pay for something and I was greeted, or should I say not greeted, by the most unfriendly young woman. There was not one bit of acknowledgement that I was even there. No hello, no smile. Just a slight nod of her head when I asked her a question. I seriously wanted to ask her, “Is it really that bad?”
Rewind to a few days earlier when I approached the check-out line in another store. I was called upon by a friendly, yet quite unenthusiastic salesman. He was obviously young; maybe a year out of school, and had absolutely zero interest in being there.
As he rang up each item, he appeared confused and completely bored. I wanted to say “Come on, it’s not too difficult to do what you are doing. You have a job in a great store! Take some pride in your work!”
In fact, when he asked me if I wanted to open a store credit card, he rolled his eyes at me and subtlety (or maybe not too subtlety) shook he head no. Well, if you put it like that, I can’t wait to open one!
My parents always taught me to give whatever I am doing my best, even if the circumstances aren’t great. This included doing homework. I had to do it; might as well do it with a smile on my face.
I’m sure that most of us have had jobs that we weren’t exactly thrilled with. But, we did what we had to do and hopefully we respected our manager, our customers as well as ourselves. In my view, it is the unpleasant work experiences which push us to pursue the next endeavor.
This most recent experience made me think. Let’s point out to our kids what good work is. It could be a sales person in a store, a waiter or waitress in a restaurant, even a doctor with a good bedside manner. They are working hard, taking pride in what they are doing and in turn making the customer, client or patient feel good!
It’s not necessarily work as we know it, but every time my son goes on the tennis court, we do a hand clap and say “work hard, play hard.” It gets him excited! We make it fun!
Let’s encourage our kids to always try to enjoy what they are doing, find out what they really like doing and pursue it, and if they have a job that doesn’t make them happy, tell them they can always search for something that does.
Most of us have to work. We might as well be happy doing it!
