The dorm I lived in my first year of university had a lounge area on each floor that was a gathering place to watch TV, have dorm meetings or just sit and talk. We were responsible for keeping our own rooms clean but the lounge was cleaned daily for us. Until the people hired to do the cleaning said they'd had enough.
We were called into an unscheduled dorm meeting one evening where we were informed cleaning services would be suspended for one week because the staff was having to deal with messes that weren't on the list of routine duties. We were told the lounge was so terrible the residence staff was putting us on a cleaning rotation to see for ourselves what it was like.
What a difference a week made. Those who were scheduled to clean up were vocal about messes being made and held others responsible for cleaning up after themselves. When it was friends and fellow dorm mates doing the cleaning we paid attention to the mess we were making. A week earlier girls were spitting sunflower seeds on the carpet. Disgusting, but true. The thought of having to clean it up themselves made them cease that behavior. So why was it happening in the first place?
I was on a long flight where we were served multiple meals, snacks, and beverages, and given extra pillows and blankets at various stages of the trip. We were seated in the back section of the plane so had to walk through most of the cabin when it was time to disembark. I could not believe the mess we were seeing on the floor as we walked past cluttered row after row after row. Yes, it had been a longer flight and yes, we were offered many things over those hours, but I couldn't remember a flight when the opportunity to get rid of garbage was offered more times either. What is wrong with us that we would throw things all over the floor to be piled up, stepped on and kicked around? Who taught us to treat this space like that?
A man sitting behind us at a theme park stage show was rather loud in exclaiming how little change his son had returned with after making concession purchases. At the conclusion of the show, and as everybody prepared to depart the amphitheatre, a child with the family began picking up wrappers and cups. When his dad asked him what he was doing the child said he was picking up garbage so he could throw it away. His father told him to leave it there because they had paid enough for that stuff and shouldn't have to clean it up, too.
"It's just so frustrating," said an employee in an interview commenting on her work with a stadium cleaning crew. "We get paid for a certain number of hours so if those hours are spent just picking up garbage we're not really getting the cleaning done. We could do a better job if we weren't spending all our time picking up bags of garbage from every row." She wondered if people might treat the place differently if they saw what the cleaning crew dealt with at the end of every game. It's what the girls on my dorm floor needed as a wake-up call, but should that have been necessary?
It seems we delight in taking broad swipes at certain occupations based on what we see on the surface or what we presume to know. Or worse, what we have been told our opinion should be. But unless we've done it ourselves, few of us understand the challenges of anyone else's job. Even if we've worked in a similar position we don't know the ins and outs of what anyone else might be dealing with on any given day. But we shouldn't need to 'walk a mile in someone's shoes' to treat the job anyone else does with a decent level of respect.
It's employee appreciation day on March 4. Letting someone know they are appreciated is a good start. So to would be doing what we can to support others in the jobs they are doing.
The child at the theme park who was told by his parent to leave the garbage on the ground didn't listen. He picked it up and dumped it in one of the garbage cans located very conveniently at the top of the stairs. He demonstrated respect for the space he was in and for all those whose work in front of and behind the scenes made possible what he had just experienced. True appreciation. Tremendous respect. That's my outlook.
