My birth certificate lists the professions (at the time) of my parents. My father was a roughneck and my mother was a waitress. And I am quite proud of both of them. When you think about people, and what they do, sometimes it is useful to think about life without them. Not quite in the same manner as poor old George in “It’s a Wonderful Life” but from a functional view.
Enter a restaurant and there is no one to take your order and no one to serve your food or clean up after you have left for the next person. Oh sure, there are places to eat where you perform each of those roles — and that is okay if you expect it. But it isn’t the same experience. Take it one step farther and whisk the cook(s) out of the kitchen and move them to someplace else. Now you not only order your own food but you have to cook it. There’s a bit of assistance in that, presumably, the “restaurant” has supplies on hand and the means to cook things but it’s not a very long step from cooking at home.
I have to admit that I can only imagine a roughneck at his, or her, work. I can look, and have looked, up the job on Google. I know that they do much of the hard, “dirty”, (often dangerous) work around an oil well but that’s not the same as actually being part of the crew. They do the physically demanding tasks like handling heavy pipes and tools, and maintaining drilling equipment. They also drive, and direct, heavy machinery. It is hard to imagine an oil well created without a crew of roughnecks (risking their necks, fingers, and more) on the job. About the closest I come to such work is having driven Caterpillar® tractors on my summer job at the wheat farm.
I have done quite a few types of jobs throughout my life — not counting the myriad tasks associated with being a house husband. If I had never rogued a wheat field, the wheat might have had too high of a percentage of contamination — decreasing the price, and income, for the farm. If I hadn’t done my job as a donut baker, then where would the donuts have come from to ease the load of many a person on their way home from work? Perhaps without my weavings, someone’s life would have been that slight bit less pleasurable? I don’t know but I do know that there was some measure of difference, and need, for the tasks that I have done in my life.
As I worked in various corporate offices — from a Computer Science department in a university (Kansas State University, to be precise) to work at Bell Labs and other places, it became obvious where the true needs, and values, came from. When the department head was gone for a week travelling, did it make any difference to the life of the people working in the offices and labs? No, not that much. If they were gone for a month or more I certainly hope that it would have made a difference. But have the executive assistant be gone with a cold for a couple of days and things literally ground to a halt. No one even knew how to do the things that were needed to keep the building functional.
As you meander through your days, especially at this time of enhanced gratitude and hope, pay attention to the folks around you and what they do for you and what they do around you. Step back a moment. What would life be like if they didn’t exist? Likely a worse place. So, acknowledge them, and thank them, before they “disappear”.
Let’s not just say everyone is important — let’s act like everyone is important.
Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Blessed Chanukah, and Happy Holidays to all!
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