The taxi or car service driver.
The baggage handler.
The airline employee at the check-in counter, and the stewardess on the plane.
The customs person at the airport and the bellhop at the hotel.
The waiter that serves you in the restaurant and the busboy who clears the table.
The lifeguard who secures your fun and the pool boy
Everybody is a somebody.
Your tour guide and bus driver.
The security guard.
The salesperson in the souvenir shop, and the housekeeper who cleans your room.
Each one of them is a somebody. Everybody is a somebody.
As a young man, walking through the Conway stores with my father, I was confused by something. Each time my father would acknowledge someone – that person seemed to stand taller. If he walked by an employee and failed to acknowledge them, they shrunk with his lack of attention.
I never understood it. My father walked through the stores five days a week – and saw the same people how could their reactions have been so dramatic each and every day?
My lack of understanding was compounded by other misimpressions of youth and circumstances: Werent these people there to serve my father and to facilitate his business success? Why did he make the effort to acknowledge some of them? And why did they care?
Years later, when I began to walk through the stores myself I did as I was shown.
I acknowledged some and ignored others, not in a purposeful way rather in a generally disengaged way. I never thought much about my greetings, or lack thereof.
Then something simple but insightful happened. I had been doing training in the stores, and awarded Certificates of Achievement to those who completed the program. The certificates were a fairly standard practice in my mind, until I visited the home of one of our employees a few years after the program ended. When I entered the family room, I noticed that her walls were empty, with the exception of some pictures of her family members, and the framed certificate she had received in our training program. I asked her daughter why the certificate had been framed and mounted. She answered that her mom was very proud of that accomplishment.
Everybody is a somebody and needs to be treated that way by everybody else.
Everybody is a somebody and should be valued, as such, by all who come into contact with him/her.
The man pumping your gas, the one collecting your garbage, and all of those mentioned above have infinite value, granted by their Maker. They have pure and uncomplicated human value a value thats not a function of anything they may or may not do in life. Their value is inherent, and embedded by their Maker, from the beginning of time.
The ability to recognize that everybody is a somebody makes each of us part of this magnificent, G-d endowed human experience. Opting out of that perspective denies the inherent greatness of others, and will ultimately provide you with the unfortunate perspective of denying that greatness in yourself.
So, let this serve as a special vacation supplement?! Lets make sure our children respectfully greet, thank and recognize everyone they come into contact with on their vacation. Be very sensitive to this yourself. They will be taught by example as children, of all ages, are.
The taxi or car service driver.
The baggage handler.
The airline employee at the check-in counter and the stewardess on the plane.
The customs person at the airport and the bellhop at the hotel.
The waiter that serves you in the restaurant and the busboy who clears the table.
The lifeguard who secures your fun and the pool boy.
Everybody is a somebody.
Your tour guide and bus driver.
The security guard.
The salesperson in the souvenir shop and the housekeeper who cleans your room.
Each one of them is a somebody. Everybody is a somebody.
Building this perspective in our children will enable each of them, always, to treat themselves as a somebody as well.
Have a great vacation!
Warmest regards,
Ricky
