Why is it helpful to be friends with a cleaning lady

Human

Although society is like a big machine with different gears turning, it is better not to cross the line when the other person begins to look like only a tool that performs a specific function, and nothing more. Behind the outer facade - a cleaner, a security guard, a courier, a waiter, an intern - are hidden thoughts, feelings, hopes, a living personality.

Quite often, people who work together for months (and even not only in a large company, but also in the same department) know almost nothing about each other. This is not a team, but strangers who, for their different life reasons, gathered in one room.

But if you show a little participation, not concentrate only on yourself, then suddenly it turns out that one colleague is actively involved in sports and loves history; the girl from the third department on the left traveled a lot and writes articles about other countries; the secretary teaches foreign languages; a laconic programmer, whom everyone was afraid of - an excellent photographer and generally quite a funny person; the copywriter still draws pictures and teaches children; and the guard has a good speech and he is a kind of life psychologist. Written off from nature.

Of course, it is not necessary to be imbued with altruism towards people of all positions that catch our eye and try to comprehend the secrets of their inner world (sometimes a low social status really means that there is no special inner world). But do not admit that a person has the right to hear from you a calm "Hello!" or to get a simple smile, simply by virtue of the fact that this is the same human being as yourself - a little selfish. A person who cherishes a sense of a certain superiority will probably forget about social conventions, finding himself in a situation where ranks and positions do not mean anything.

And if we consider the issue the way the British professor of social anthropology David Graeber considers it:

“You can say whatever you want about nurses, scavengers or mechanics, but it is obvious that if they dissolve like a haze in the air, the results will be immediate and disastrous. A world without teachers or dock workers is likely to be in trouble, and a world without science fiction writers or scam musicians may be less enjoyable. It is not at all clear how humanity will suffer if all the chairmen of the board, PR specialists, lobbyists, specialists in insurance calculations and telephone sales, bailiffs or legal advisers disappear (the list can be significantly increased) ,

- then you can still think about which professions bring more benefits.

Pragmatic

Make friends with the "social invisibles". The same cleaning ladies are well aware that most people perceive it more as walking furniture. And when people pay attention to them, they are doubly pleased.

You do not know how your life will turn out and what people will take part in it. It is likely that someone you never thought of getting help from will really help you. The same cleaning ladies hear many things that are not particularly intended for prying ears. Observe how some people talk, completely oblivious to the robe with a rag swarming in the corner, and what they say.

In one of Chesterton's stories, the storyline is built on this. A crime was committed and the culprit could not be found. There was no evidence that the murders were committed by a person walking through the walls. And only later, when Father Brown (the hero of Chesterton's stories) began to be guided by the principle “First we look wherever we can, and then where we cannot,” he suspected the postman. A good example of "social invisibility".