+1. Well said.
Thanks. I have respect for a Vice President in a large corporation who provides leadership, the right pathway, and protects the interests of the people under him.
I also respect the guy who cuts my grass, because he pays attention to his work, does a great job on the edges, avoids my wife’s garden items, is reliable, dependable, flexible, and is a customer oriented type of guy who runs a family business.
I respect the person who writes software, and the person who cleans the bathroom.
I don’t respect the garbage collectors in my town, because they throw people’s trash cans on their lawn or in their driveway, instead of either standing them up or gently placing them on the ground so they don’t blow away.
The respect is about how much someone cares about what they do. If they do a good job and treat their customers well (VP treats employees under him as customers, municipal trash collectors treat the elderly guy in the run down house as THEIR customer) then they have my respect. Work is work.
It always reminds me, when I do hear people speak disparagingly about someone who they see as doing a job that would be beneath them, the old joke about all the organs in the body that had an argument about who should be the boss.
The Brain said “I’m the obvious choice, I have the ability to orchestrate everything.”
The Heart said “How about me? How can people make moral decisions without me, and besides, I keep you all supplied with blood!”
The Stomach said “No, I should be the boss. Without me, you guys would wander around all the time undernourished thinking of your next meal.”
The Rectum spoke up and said “Why can’t I be...” and he was immediately shouted down, ridiculed and laughed at by all the other organs. So the rectum said, “Fine. You are all jerks. I am clamming up, and I am not going back to work until everyone apologizes to me.”
After three days without a rectum on the job, everyone voted to make the Asshole the Boss.