Day 2-12 -- Will you see me now?

As I left work tonight, I had a good chat with our cleaning staff person. I do this many evenings, since their shift begins at the end of my day. I've always enjoyed chatting with people in the buildings in which I've worked. I had read a few years ago about a nursing professor who had added a question to her exam that students felt was unfair. She simply asked, "What is the name of the cleaning lady in our building?"  Her point was that as health professionals, we need to learn to see people and attend to them. If we seem to ignore some people as background or invisible, then we can't begin to hold the level of empathy needed to successfully practice our craft.

There are many people in our society that we walk by without seeing -- not only street people, but also wait staff, custodial staff, and cashiers at many stores. The latter group work in service positions and it seems that the upstairs-downstairs rules still apply in our modern world. Those providing service seem to be seen as servants, and thus beneath our attention. Very few of us live in situations where we have household servants, yet we can feel socially superior to people working in servile positions. Some people may choose to cultivate some verbal exchanges to ensure that when they need something special done, these people may be inclined to do us a favour --a type of social barter -- I'll see you and you'll help me.  Taking an actual interest in their lives and showing them that we don't all think of them as our personal servants, can mean a lot to both sides of the conversation. It brings us both closer to our humanity. Learning about their families and outside interests is worth the time, after all they are people, too. We would all feel unwanted and unappreciated should everyone walk by us without even a nod or a smile.

Walking home tonight, between dancing around the puddles and the ice patches, I heard a single line from the song shared today -- from the title and chorus.  In my head, the lyric took the side of the people being ignored by others in their work place -- a very different meaning than the full lyrics of today's selection. Enjoy!

You Won't See Me -- The Beatles