I fixed the stairs at my kids’ school. Parents had three different reactions.
Acknowledgement: I’m sorry I don’t have any pictures, but I didn’t think I needed to take any at the time, so bear with me as I share this story.
My children go to a co-op preschool, run by a board of directors of parents of the kids at the school. It’s a great school, with warm and thoughtful teachers, and it’s only two blocks from our house. Previously at another location, the school moved into a new building (the one close our house a few years ago). Any new construction will have some issues, and the school was quick to address them. A few months ago, the school director had to resign for some personal matters and the school has been run by an interim director (one of the longest tenured teachers there) in the meantime. The board continues to solicit applicants for the director position. And because that is the most pressing matter, other issues at the school, like minor maintenance things, have been overlooked.
One of those issues is the carpet tile in the stairwell. Because the building’s elevator is hydraulic (and therefore very slow), most people use the stairs, particularly a set of stairs near the parking garage. Over time (and inevitably), the carpet tiles and the plastic edge pieces lose their adhesive. When that happens, carpet tiles are no longer secure and slip out of place, causing tripping hazards (and just looking bad in general).
The issue has been ongoing for some time and hasn’t been addressed. I’ll admit I never mentioned it to the staff, and I don’t know if anyone else mentioned it either. Either way, the carpet tiles on the stairs were getting worse and more were coming undone. As I typically drop off and pick up my kids each day, I see this more than most.
I’ve worked in construction, so I felt like I should do my part to fix the issue, instead of walking over it every day. As I recently renovated my basement (the floor is carpet tile), I had extra carpet tape, so today I went to fix the stairs. It was a fairly simple job: cutting some strips of carpet tape and reattaching the carpet tile and/or the plastic joint pieces and securing all of it to the concrete base. The old adhesive had worn out, so new adhesive should just do the trick.
As I worked, parents dropping of their kids walked by me up and down the stairs. Over time, I realized there were three specific, different reactions that parents had to me working, so I grouped them into three buckets
1) The parents who know me (because our kids are in the same classes): these parents were extremely appreciative of my work and time, with many reminding me to “Tell the school so you can get your volunteer hours!” (Our school requires parents to volunteer a certain amount to help out). They had their kids say “Thank you” to me for fixing the stairs. All were gracious and appreciative, again so when they walked down the stairs.
2) The parents who didn’t know me but appreciated my work: These parents were respectful of the space I was working in and gave me a few seconds to clear the walkway, thanking me for fixing the stairs. I don’t think they knew I was a parent, but just some guy fixing the stairs. They were appreciative either way, as they recognized the stairs had been in a state of disrepair for some time.
3) The parents who didn’t acknowledge me: These parents simply walked by me without acknowledging me, just telling their kids to not step on my tools or to be careful on the stairs. When they returned down the stairs after dropping their kids off, I received no further acknowledgement of my contributions.
In my younger years, I probably would have made a bigger deal of my contributions, letting the parents I didn’t know that I was a parent of kids at the school and that I was volunteering my time to fix something that had gone unaddressed. This time, I didn’t have that desire. As of writing this, I still hadn’t informed the school of my contribution, and I don’t know if I will (I think we’ve already reached our volunteering minimum for the school year). I’m finding that maybe this was a case of self-gratification…I wanted to fix it and found pleasure and joy in doing so, the external stimulus didn’t matter as much. I was just happy to do it.
There may also be an underlying motivation that I’ll find joy in people finding out through the parents who did see me and recognize what I was doing. That’s also not guaranteed.
In the end, I have several takeaways:
The first is that it’s important to treat people in the service world with respect and acknowledge their contributions. To have people walk by me and not acknowledge my contributions to improve their lives (even if I was paid to do it, which I wasn’t) was an interesting feeling.
The second is that I’m reconsidering the value I place on others’ thoughts of my work. Feedback from others is incredibly important for my job, of course, because if I don’t act on good feedback from clients, I’ll quickly be out of money. But it still makes me wonder about how much others’ thoughts are really worth to me. This is something I’ll continue to think about.
I recognize the irony here: doing something without seeking validation while writing a blog and sharing it. The most important point of writing this is to capture my thoughts of this experience (as I’ll probably forget them at some point in the future). The second important point was to reflect on this for my work with clients and thinking about gratitude and appreciation.
