Dedication Matters

It's been a very snowy few days here in the Northeast US, and that 'vacation' feel I talked about earlier really hasn't changed. 

We had one day of school and 'regular' work, but then a storm hit, and everything shut down again.  Schools closed, roads covered and treacherous, even the superhighways closed.  Frankly, though, I had had enough of working from home, and decided on Friday that I was going to get to the office, despite the obstacles.  I'm not really sure why, but something drove me to be there.

The roads weren't great, but were passable.  I was driving on a six-lane highway for a few miles with no other cars in sight, but I took it slow (30-40MPH) and I wasn't sliding around.  I hit the NY border, and had asphalt under my tires.  All good, right?  

I was surprised that I was the first car in the parking lot.....but not that the parking lot wasn't fully plowed yet.  What surprised me more was that by noon, there were only 11 cars on the site (normally probably about 1,000). My company promotes working from home, so we all have the infrastructure, and many people were doing just that.  It seemed others had more sense than I did, 'cause everyone was working, just not at the office.

But then a knock on my office door.  It was the woman who collects the garbage from all of the offices, and she was doing her normal rounds.  Probably an easier day for her, I thought, as none of the offices were open or being used, but she was there when no one else was.  So was the guy who vacuums the floors on Friday night.  And the guy who made sandwiches in the cafeteria for the few people who were there.  And as I left, the person who polishes the floors in the vestibule.

Yes, people in these jobs might not get paid unless they showed up for work, so they have a definite interest in being there.  But I thought hard about the dedication to the job that each of them displayed, and the fact that every single one of them greeted me with a big smile and a "Hello" (really, "Hola" in most cases, but that's no big deal).  Each of them had braved the snow / ice / bad roads to get to their job; they didn't wimp out, they didn't grumble through their day, begrudging the fact that they had to work when it appeared no one else was.  They seemed happy to be there in service, and intent on doing their job to the same standard they had always maintained.

There's something to be said for that, but I haven't put it all together yet.  There's a positive attitude, a willingness to serve others, a dedication to do a job and do it well, that I really respect.  I hope to show more of those attitudes through this year myself.

Recent runs:
1/3: 10K on the treadmill.
1/4: 2 mile run, 1 mile walk, all treadmill
1/5: 8 miles running 6 laps around the parking lot of the local mall.  Just glad there's no treadmill.