The happy secret to better work

Olivia Bell Photography - Picture found on Pinterest

An entertaining and enlightening talk by Shawn Anchor. TED.com is such a great resource...and best of all, it's free.

The value of human life

By Natascha Rosenberg via here

I came across this while downloading Notepad ++ for work reasons. I agree that we need to start viewing all human life as equal, if we don't already. Racism and prejudice based on gender, culture, beliefs, social standing or any other factor, stems from a perspective that some people are worth more than others. 

Oddly, the title and conclusion of the linked post seems to suggest that one situation is more important than the other, which is counter to the point I believe the author is making. So perhaps what they mean to say is, it's important to recognise needs across the board (or globe, in this case), realise the severity of what is taking place everyday, and respond with as much concern and commitment. 

Do we focus on one over the other simply because we value one people group more or can this be attributed to a lack of information or an understanding of how to approach something that is so prevalent and therefore incredibly overwhelming? I think there may be a number of different aspects to consider as to why an imbalance in response exists, but at the end of the day, the message is clear - we need to start acting because every person on the planet deserves a secure tomorrow.

The Cab Ride

So I walked to the door and knocked. 'Just a minute', answered a frail, elderly voice. I could hear something being dragged across the floor. After a long pause, the door opened. A small woman in her 90's stood before me. She was wearing a print dress and a pillbox hat with a veil pinned on it, like somebody out of a 1940s movie. By her side was a small nylon suitcase. The apartment looked as if no one had lived in it for years. All the furniture was covered with sheets. There were no clocks on the walls, no knickknacks or utensils on the counters. In the corner was a cardboard box filled with photos and glassware.

'Would you carry my bag out to the car?' she said. I took the suitcase to the cab, then returned to assist the woman. She took my arm and we walked slowly toward the curb. She kept thanking me for my kindness. 'It's nothing', I told her. 'I just try to treat my passengers the way I would want my mother treated'. 'Oh, you're such a good boy', she said. When we got in the cab, she gave me an address, and then asked, 'Could you drive through downtown?' 'It's not the shortest way,' I answered quickly. 'Oh, I don't mind,' she said. 'I'm in no hurry. I'm on my way to a hospice'..

I looked in the rear-view mirror. Her eyes were glistening. 'I don't have any family left,' she continued. 'The doctor says I don't have very long.' I quietly reached over and shut off the meter. 'What route would you like me to take?' I asked.

For the next two hours, we drove through the city. She showed me the building where she had once worked as an elevator operator. We drove through the neighbourhood where she and her husband had lived when they were newlyweds. She had me pull up in front of a furniture warehouse that had once been a ballroom where she had gone dancing as a girl. Sometimes she'd ask me to slow in front of a particular building or corner and would sit staring into the darkness, saying nothing.

As the first hint of sun was creasing the horizon, she suddenly said, 'I'm tired. Let's go now'. We drove in silence to the address she had given me. It was a low building, like a small convalescent home, with a driveway that passed under a portico. Two orderlies came out to the cab as soon as we pulled up. They were solicitous and intent, watching her every move. They must have been expecting her..I opened the trunk and took the small suitcase to the door. The woman was already seated in a wheelchair.

'How much do I owe you?' she asked, reaching into her purse. 'Nothing,' I said. 'You have to make a living,' she answered..'There are other passengers,' I responded. Almost without thinking, I bent and gave her a hug. She held onto me tightly. 'You gave an old woman a little moment of joy,' she said. 'Thank you.' I squeezed her hand, and then walked into the dim morning light. Behind me, a door shut. It was the sound of the closing of a life.

I didn't pick up any more passengers that shift. I drove aimlessly lost in thought. For the rest of that day, I could hardly talk. What if that woman had gotten an angry driver, or one who was impatient to end his shift? What if I had refused to take the run, or had honked once, then driven away? On a quick review, I don't think that I have done anything more important in my life. We're conditioned to think that our lives revolve around great moments. But great moments often catch us unaware-beautifully wrapped in what others may consider a small one.

PEOPLE MAY NOT REMEMBER EXACTLY WHAT YOU DID, OR WHAT YOU SAID, BUT THEY WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER HOW YOU MADE THEM FEEL.

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance.

Be yourself

"...Often we want to be somewhere other than where we are, or even to be someone other than who we are. We tend to compare ourselves constantly with others and wonder why we are not as rich, as intelligent, as simple, as generous, or as saintly as they are. Such comparisons make us feel guilty, ashamed, or jealous. It is very important to realize that our vocation is hidden in where we are and who we are. We are unique human beings, each with a call to realize in life what nobody else can, and to realize it in the concrete context of the here and now. We will never find our vocations by trying to figure out whether we are better or worse than others. We are good enough to do what we are called to do. Be yourself!..."

Henri Nouwen

the reason for knowing

"...There are some who long to know, simply for the sake of knowing, and that is shameful curiosity. Others long to know to show off before others, and that is shameful vanity. There are others who long for knowledge to make a fat profit from it, or to make honors from it; and this is shameful profiteering. But there are those who long to know in order to be of service to others; and this is charity..."

Bernard of Clairvaux

Listen Here

Fab found this story...I forgot to ask where. But it gets you thinking about what each of us is listening for in our daily lives. I've written the story from memory in my own words but it'll give you the gist of it.

An Indian man was visiting a friend of his who lived in New York. Walking in the heart of Manhattan city amidst the hustle and bustle of traffic and rushing people, the man stopped in his tracks and turned to his friend, "Hey, I just heard a cricket". "A what?! A cricket?" came his friend's response. "Yes, a cricket. There, I just heard it again". "Are you mad, man? We're in the middle of a crowded noisy city. Taxis are blaring their horns, people are yelling, there's so much going on and you think you can hear a cricket? You've got to be kidding me", his cynical friend replied.

The Indian man grabbed his friend by the arm and said, "here, come with me!". He walked towards one of the nearby buildings and hesitated. "No, it's not here", he mumbled. Off he went towards another building and another. "Nope, not here either".

Finally he came to a tree across the road, knelt down, dug around a bit in the soil and lo and behold pulled out a little cricket. "See, a cricket!" "Unbelievable! That's amazing! How on earth did you do that?" his surprised friend asked. "Ah, it just depends on what you're listening for", he said as he fished out a small handful of loose change from one of his pockets.

"Watch this", and as he made that remark, the Indian man walked onto the pavement and dropped the coins. Immediately all surrounding passers-by stopped short and turned towards the sound of the coins hitting the sidewalk.

(End of Story)

(My thoughts)

What are you listening for? What are the sounds you recognise and respond to? Do you hear the voice of God every single day? Do you sense the Holy Spirit's prompting and obey it? Do you commune with the Lord?

I'm sensitive to noises when I am about to sleep. I can't sleep if someone is breathing heavily, even if that person is me. I can't sleep if there is any snoring. Or people talking, even whispering, or if I suddenly hear birds singing or animals calling out to one another or rustling in the trees.

Sometimes if the sound of rain on the roof is too loud, it takes me a longer time to doze off. Of course this is all dependent on how tired I am as there are nights I probably sleep through most common sounds. There are sounds I can eventually learn to drown out like that of my fan or maybe even a faint, distant TV noise if it stays at a constant tone. Sometimes, anyway.

I realise that when I'm out of the house, I can be very sensitive to the tone of peoples' voices, particularly if it is a male voice. I immediately become cautious and wary if I hear raised voices, or a rowdy group approaching. It's happened a number of times now. Fab and I will be out having lunch somewhere and suddenly all I am able to focus on is the man sitting behind Fab talking loudly and swearing on his mobile. I notice I tend to listen in to make sure it is not a hostile situation. That the person is not likely to disrupt the peace and hurt anyone, especially us.

Sometimes little incidents can make me feel really ill and I lose my appetite. Like the time I caught a man touching a waitresses' hand, which made her really uncomfortable. He wasn't loud but he made me feel sick and I couldn't continue with my dinner.

If my attention was always on God. If my ears were pricked to hear His voice, my mind and heart would probably be more at ease. I could ask for His direction, for His opinion, for His perspective and peace. How many times do we act before really listening?

Maybe we only listen to part of what He is saying and run ahead of Him. Maybe we hear Him but we don't respond. Maybe we try to argue or reason or negotiate and include our own justifications. I know I am certainly guilty of all of that. He knows the stunts I pull and is very clever to deal with them.

Many times He tends to just leave me to work it out because eventually I have to admit He's right when things are so clearly stated in His Word or have been confirmed by someone else. Sometimes He stays silent to prompt me to seek to discover what the truth is if it isn't so plain.

The folded napkin

Truckers Story - sent by a colleague of mine

If this doesn't light your fire, your wood is wet!

I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counselor assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy. But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and wasn't sure I wanted one. I wasn't sure how my customers would react to Stevie.

He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Downs Syndrome. I wasn't worried about most of my trucker customers because truckers don't generally care who buses tables as long as the meatloaf platter is good and the pies are homemade.

The four-wheeler drivers were the ones who concerned me; the mouthy college kids travelling to school; the yuppie snobs who secretly polish their silverware with their napkins for fear of catching some dreaded 'truck stop germ' the pairs of white-shirted business men on expense accounts who think every truck stop waitress wants to be flirted with. I knew those people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first few weeks.

I shouldn't have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck stop mascot.

After that, I really didn't care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and peppershaker was exactly in its place, not a breadcrumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done with the table. Our only problem was persuading him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus dishes and glasses onto his cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced flourish of his rag.

If he thought a customer was watching, his brow would pucker with added concentration. He took pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met

Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated surgeries for cancer They lived on their Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from the truck stop. Their social worker, who stopped to check on him every so often, admitted they had fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him was probably the difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home. That's why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work.

He was at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Downs Syndrome often have heart problems at an early age so this wasn't unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months.

A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery, and doing fine.

Frannie, the head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news.

Belle Ringer, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of this 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table.

Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Belle Ringer a withering look.

He grinned. 'OK, Frannie, what was that all about?' he asked.

'We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay.'

'I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?'

Frannie quickly told Belle Ringer and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie's surgery, then sighed: 'Yeah, I'm glad he is going to be OK,' she said. 'But I don't know how he and his Mom are going to handle all the bills. From what I hear, they're barely getting by as it is.' Belle Ringer nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables. Since I hadn't had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie and really didn't want to replace him, the girls were bussing their own tables that day until we decided what to do.

After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand and a funny look on her face.

'What's up?' I asked.

'I didn't get that table where Belle Ringer and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pony Pete and Tony Tipper were sitting there when I got back to clean it off,' she said. 'This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup.'

She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 bills fell onto my desk when I opened it. On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed 'Something For Stevie'.

'Pony Pete asked me what that was all about,' she said, 'so I told him about Stevie and his Mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this.' She handed me another paper napkin that had 'Something For Stevie' scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply: 'truckers.'

That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to work

His placement worker said he's been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn't matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy. I arranged to have his mother bring him to work. I then met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back.

Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn't stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and bussing cart were waiting.

'Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast,' I said. I took him and his mother by their arms 'Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate you coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me!' I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the room.

I could feel and hear the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the procession. We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins. 'First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess,' I said. I tried to sound stern.

Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had 'Something for Stevie' printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table.

Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each with his name printed or scrawled on it. I turned to his mother. 'There's more than $10,000 in cash and checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems. 'Happy Thanksgiving.

Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a few tears, as well.

But you know what's funny?
While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a big, big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the table.

Best worker I ever hired.