Another Look At Why Work Ethic Matters

Last night I was powerfully reminded of why it is so important for us to care about the work we do and, by extension, do it well.

I was leaving my office at around 7:00 to go out for a short walk and pick up some dinner. Directly in front of my building, a disturbing scene was unfolding. A man in a wheelchair, with only one arm and one leg, was struggling to get out of his chair and chase after two young able-bodied men who had stolen his crutches from the back of his chair. These two men ran quickly across a busy downtown intersection, waving the crutches over their heads victoriously. To make things worse, there was a policeman sitting inside his patrol car watching this scene unfold. As the man in the wheelchair stood on his one good leg, impotently screaming at the thieves, the police car slowly and deliberately drove away.

When I got to the corner convenience store, I saw the two men jubilantly high-fiving each other over their success; inside the store, the man's crutches stood innocently leaning against the counter. I walked back to my building to tell the wheelchair-bound man where they'd left his crutches, but he'd disappeared.

If the policeman had done his job, those two mean-spiritied young men would be sitting in jail long enough for them to think many times over about ever doing such an awful thing again. They certainly would not be prancing down the street celebrating their crime. And the police officers would be reprimanded for a poor job performance.

From a larger perspective, I am reminded of how important it is to care about the work you do and do it well. As part of my career counseling work, I often help my clients look for ways to make intolerable jobs more tolerable and create plans that will enable them to find and build more satisfying careers. But I'm not good with people who feel entitled to get paid without doing the work they were hired to do. If you are willing to accept a paycheck to do a job, you have a responsibility to do that job to the best of your ability....right up until the day you quit.