Finding Dignity...
One of my friends is a career housekeeper. For years she admitted this to no one but her family, a few friends and her clients of course.
She was not ashamed of what she did for a living, hard physical labour cleaning the homes of those probably more well off than her, but she remained private about it. That was just her way.
Society has such unfair and often cruel stereotypes around jobs that don’t involve ‘higher education’. Such a façade! So ridiculous!
These stereotypes often attach the description ‘unambitious’ or ‘uneducated’ to people who chose to clean homes. Wrong!!
Wherever my friend works, let’s call her Gisela for the sake of anonymity, she leaves that home having exceeded expectations. Small kindnesses, not expected, extra jobs, often time consuming and unappealing, are always done. Gisela is always cheerful, creative, loves to laugh and never complains. Her clients look forward to the days that she comes to their home and are never disappointed with the experience.
For you see, there is great dignity to be found in any job. It is the spirit that you take to it that matters: the sense of pride that you feel with a job well done. It is the ‘positive contagion’ that you leave behind each day.
Ultimately, it is not your degrees or your assumed pedigrees that give you joy or value…a valuable lesson many so—called ‘important’ or ‘influential’ people could learn from a wonderful and dignified housekeeper...
