FIRST PUBLISHED AT http://www.conversation.wamu.org
I marched late into work the other morning without saying hello to one of the janitors. Normally we'd give each other a cheery if polite greeting. But I'd just had a tough phone conversation and I was preoccupied and late.
I didn't see her bending awkwardly into the hallway cupboard where her supplies are kept.
Our janitors are employed by independent contractors. They work as hard as anyone in the building, in more challenging circumstances (smelly food, forest-threatening piles of newspapers, etc).
They don't take as many sick days as some of us, they never admit to being tired, and they don't respond to "challenges", they simply do what needs to be done.
Their zealous use of the vacuum cleaner gives them a noisy reputation, especially in the studios, but personally they're much quieter and less verbally demanding than the rest of us.
Last night I told my media management students the story of an exhibition by Duane Hanson at American University's Katzen Arts Center two years ago, which I attended with my then 3-year-old daughter. If you click on the link, scroll down three or four items to see what I'm talking about. I told the students that managers need to make everyone in the organization feel valued and take an interest in everyone's work. In this, I said, all employees should be seen as equal.
Duane Hanson became famous in the 1960s and 1970s for his lifelike sculptures of everyday people that were cast from live models, then painted in great detail and finished with ordinary objects.
In this exhibition at the Katzen lifelike figures which were really sculptures were positioned all around the building. In the coffee bar, the galleries, the corridors, and the concert halls. My daughter examined them closely to make sure they weren't moving.
There was one particular sculpture which caught our attention. It was a janitor, complete with (bright yellow) garbage-bin on wheels, mop-on-stick, sprays, fluids, and brushes.
"She" was standing by the elevator, and the exhibition visitors would emerge in clusters from the elevator, and walk right past her.
No one saw her. With her cleaning equipment, she was the largest "still-life" exhibit of all of them. But no-one noticed.
My daughter said: "They should put her in front of the elevator, then everyone will see her."
"That's not what she would want" , I ventured. Like I would know......I walked past her..
