Dish Art

“Who’s been using my dish?”

Standing in the middle of the office was a coworker holding up one of those ugly dishes that most people would be glad to see disappear from their home kitchen. No one said they had used it, so he went on to explain that he knew someone had been using it. How did he know? Because there was still something brown on the plate and he wasn’t quite sure what it was. So, again, he asked who had used it. He was standing where he could see a good number of people and still no one admitted they had used it.

“I’m watching your faces and your reactions, so I’ll know who it was.”

After not getting an answer, he went back into the lunch room. When I went to the lunch room to rinse out my own container, he was washing his dish and some other stuff that people had left in the sink. People were laughing and he was joking about it, too. He was even looking at the clean stuff in the dish rack and taking some of it back out and washing it again because it wasn’t very clean.

“Look at this stuff. Do you know how much bacteria is probably growing here? It’s like a science experiment!” He was laughing as he said it, so I know he wasn’t too serious.

One of the women in the lunch room asked if he was going to dry things, too, which started a conversation about whether we just wash or wash and dry. Seeing as there were only four women and five men in the room, I wouldn’t call this a scientific study, but it seems that men just wash and leave things, while the women wash and dry.

A few minutes later, another male coworker arrived and added his two-cents worth, and probably the funniest line of the day. He explained how at home, he washes things and then piles them up in the dish rack. But he doesn’t just stack them, he gets creative. He calls what he does “dish art”, and he went on to explain how he piles up as much stuff as he possibly can. He also purposely leaves items sticking out, and his wife and kids need to be careful when they put things away. It’s almost like playing Jenga; one wrong move and the whole pile is going to come tumbling down.

When I was a kid, we had a whole bunch of dishwashers, none of them an appliance. We took turns washing and drying them as part of our chores. After a day at our house, there were a lot of cups, glasses, dishes, forks, knives and spoons, plus a few pots and pans. They all had to be washed, dried and put away. I used to hate when it was down to the last item and I thought I was done, and then someone brought over more stuff, especially when they had that goofy smile on their face. I think they were waiting for just the right moment to drop off their load and squash my happiness at being done. They probably quickly went around the house and found anything that needed to be washed. Heck, they probably got an extra drink or two of milk, using a clean glass each time, just to make more. OK, OK, so that was me that did that to them – sometimes the memories get jumbled.

Even though our house was not the neatest, you could always count on the cups, glasses, dishes and silverware being clean. No funky brown residue left on a plate, no hardened sour milk in the bottom of a glass, and no leftover mashed potatoes between the fork tines. Mom and Dad would have never stood for that. Your coworkers, if they’re like mine, probably would.

Don't Take a Lazy Man's Load

Another post in a series on Famous Family Sayings

One of the things I learned at an early age was that everyone had to pitch in and help. With so many people in one household, there was just too much for Mom and Dad to do everything themselves. I mentioned in this post that we all had chores to do in order to help out around the house and we all helped bring in items when any kind of shopping was done. We used to fill a shopping cart, and sometimes two, when grocery shopping was done.

Think about all the bags of food that would have to be brought into the house after Mom, Dad (and some of us kids) went to the store for the weekly shopping. There were a lot of bags to take care of. If we were in the middle of a game or an “important” TV show, we really didn’t want to have to go out and get all the stuff out of the car, bring it in to the house and help put it away, especially in the winter. We had different ways of dealing with this. Some of us went out right away, took as much as we could carry and brought it in; others took their time and took as little as possible as slowly as possible. We all did our best and tried to not drop anything.

But here’s the thing that used to confuse me. Dad would often say to us, “Don’t take a lazy man’s load.” I always tried to take as much as I could so I thought he was talking to the few who were taking just a couple of things at a time. I figured they were being lazy by just taking a couple of things when they could take more. However, as time went on, I noticed that Dad said “Don’t take a lazy man’s load” even when we all had as much as we could carry. I figured he must be talking to the older ones because us “little ones” were carrying big loads. At least we felt like we were.

It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I discovered what “Don’t take a lazy man’s load” really meant. It wasn’t that you took too little, but that you took too much. We would try to take as much as we could, probably too much, so that we didn’t have to go back and forth multiple times to get more. So even though we thought we were being smart and cutting down on the trips in and out, we were actually being lazy. All those years, when I figured Dad was talking to the others, he was actually talking to me.

It’s no wonder I used to hear that phrase a lot when I was helping carry things. He probably thought there was something wrong with me because as much as he told me to not take a lazy man’s load, I still did. What a knucklehead I was! I can see why he had that edge of aggravation when he told me. It’s too bad it took me almost ten years after Dad died to figure this out. Sorry, Dad.

After hearing “Don’t take a lazy man’s load” for all those years, you would think I would no longer do that, right? Well, unfortunately, I still do it today when we go shopping. I load up with as many bags as I can so I don’t have to go outside a bunch of times. The funny part of this is that I still hear Dad’s voice telling me to not take a lazy man’s load. I guess I still haven’t learned my lesson after all these years.

An "A" for Effort

I am totally amazed by the number of people on Facebook, YouTube, and the internet in general, during work hours. There are a number of people where I work that are constantly doing anything but the work they’re getting paid for. They’re uploading pictures, videos and news items to Facebook or commenting on their friend’s status or pictures they just uploaded; they’re texting or chatting with friends; they’re shopping or at least looking at stuff. Yes, these people are younger, in their 20’s or early 30’s. No, this is not about me being older and being cranky or grumpy. The fact that we have a looming deadline doesn’t seem to matter to some people, or the fact that what they’re supposed to be working on is holding something or someone else up doesn’t seem to bother them.

I’m not saying I never go on the internet at work. I take about 30 minutes at lunch and check out Facebook, the latest sports news and read what I think are important emails. I even occasionally check my emails at other times, but I don’t read them if they’re not important. And by important, I mean something that can’t be taken care of once I get home or a family matter. That rules out 99% of my emails. Before you start pasting a big “SELF RIGHTEOUS” label on me, I am the first to admit that I am far from perfect. I’ve already admitted that I sometimes go on the internet during work hours. However, I don’t do this when we’re under a work avalanche and we can barely keep our heads above the surface. There are times when you just need to bust your tail for 8-10 hours straight. I think it is the time-appropriateness (if that’s even a word) of the actions that bother me. Or maybe it’s just that it appears that the people I’m talking about just don’t seem to care if they do a good job or not, even though they know they’re being watched.

When I was a kid, we had chores to do. There were daily chores, such as setting the table for dinner, clearing the table after dinner, washing the dishes, drying the dishes and sweeping the floor. All of us had a responsibility each day. We also had weekly chores, which included vacuuming, dusting, washing the kitchen floor and washing the dining room floor. All of us had a weekly responsibility, too. In addition, some things not included in these categories are shoveling snow, cutting the grass when we were old enough and cleaning our rooms. And these are the ones I remember, there were probably more. We all learned to pitch in and do our share. But no matter what our assigned chore was, we were expected to do it right. It’s called responsibility.

I remember having to wash a floor a second time because I did a half-baked job the first time because I wanted to go hang out with my friends. Dad took one look at that floor and knew I didn’t do it right. He didn’t yell at me or make a big scene, he simply asked me if I thought the floor was truly clean and if I had done the best I could in washing the floor. I said “No” to both questions, figuring he’d let it go and let me go hang out with my friends and do a better job next week. But that’s not what he did. He actually made me do it again, do it right, before I could go and hang out with my friends. I’m glad he did.

That lesson was reinforced throughout the time I lived at home. Both my parents taught all nine of us to do the best we could no matter what we were doing. They did not expect perfection, but they did expect our best effort. Win, lose, pass, fail – it didn’t matter; what mattered most was that we gave our best effort. I remembered that lesson all through school and tried not to worry about grades. I remembered that lesson when I got my first job when I was in high school, working in the kitchen of a function facility on what was called the “slop table”. It was as good as it sounds. I remembered that lesson when I was in college and worked in the local skating rink, making the ice and sweeping up the place at the end of the night. No one would have known that I didn’t sweep everywhere, but I would have. I remembered that lesson when I got my first “real” job after college, doing something I hadn’t planned on and for a lot less money than I expected. I still gave it my best effort. I remembered that lesson at every job I’ve had since then and I still remember it today.

My wife and I have taught our kids the same lesson: to always give your best effort and do the best you can. As long as they can honestly say they gave it their all in school, I’m OK with whatever grades they get and they are, too. In their extra-curricular activities, as long as they give their best effort, I’m OK with their performance or outcome and I hope they are, too. Sure, you can pretty much always improve on something, but perfection is not the goal. People much wiser than I am have said something to the effect that it’s the journey not the destination that matters. I just think that if you give everything your best effort, the destination will be that much sweeter.