All worthwhile jobs are special and important

This week’s column in The Kerryman newspaper.

Michael Commane

Two weeks ago I wrote about a Luas passenger who had no ticket and abused the checker who behaved in an inspiring manner.

Would you believe it, on Monday morning the same checker but a different passenger without a ticket. This time the passenger behaved correctly and graciously accepted her penalty.

I changed jobs in November; it means a 90-minute journey with public transport every morning plus two short cycle rides.

I’ve a 20-minute wait, where tram links with rail, and over the weeks I’ve got friendly with a bus driver. He is at his terminus where he has a five- minute wait. In early December I started chatting with him asking him childlike questions about the type of bus he drives and what is his favourite, what does he think of the new electric and hybrid vehicles.

Our conversations have moved on from buses, though even on Monday he did tell me his favourite bus to drive is the old AX series, which is one of the buses he is driving this week. They are in service for over 18 years. 

As I approached his bus one morning I was planning to ask him what he would do if he won the Lotto but I decided not to ask, instead I asked him if he liked his job. Without a moment’s hesitation he said: ‘I love my job’. 

It was a wet miserable dark morning when I asked him that question and those four words cheered me up. Isn’t it a wonderful experience to meet someone who genuinely loves their job.

And I could see from how he greets his passengers how deadly serious he was with his answer.

I’m forever asking what’s it all about, what’s the purpose of our lives? When I hear people say; thank God it’s Friday or counting down the weeks to holidays I’m forever asking is it a matter of wishing away our lives. Surely there has to be more than lurching from one distraction to the next.

Karl Marx said that in a capitalist system workers are forced to work to survive. He’s saying something but it’s more complicated and nuanced than that.

Are we not sufficiently enlightened to see to it that no matter what the job is we can get satisfaction from it?

The majority of people want to do a day’s work and make it meaningful for them. They want to be told they have done a good job; affirmation goes a long way in getting people out of their armchairs. 

How often do we praise people for the work they do? When last did you compliment a street sweeper for keeping our roads and paths clean?

I’ve never been happy how the churches have hijacked the word vocation. As a Christian I believe we have all been called by God on our life journey.

I’m tired of all the pious words attributed to God. Maybe the god many have abandoned had nothing to do with God.

English poet Philip Larkin, who was an agnostic, asks: ‘And what remains when disbelief has gone?’ Maybe the time of disbelief is running out and it’s time to remember God.

I’ve no doubt my bus driver friend has God’s favour.