Listen, if the only thing I can teach you this summer is to clean up after yourself, it will still been a satisfying summer. I think that I will have done you, your future family, even future society a great service. I'm pretty sure that this skill surpasses balancing your check book, reading a contract, doing laundry, even vacuuming- which I do adore. I'll even go so far as to say that if some day you drop out of school, but you know how to clean up after yourself, you'll still do alright in life.
Really. After all, if you know that you have to clean up after yourself, you'll know that you first have to look around and see that: A) there's a mess and B) you made that mess. This means that after you drop out of school and it doesn't work out so hot for you, you won't need years of therapy to come to the conclusion that your parents are not the source of your problems, and are not responsible for taking care of you now that you're a loser. You'll see that you made the mess and now you have to clean it up.
Odds are though that if you learn to clean up after yourself this summer, you probably won't drop out of school. Most likely you'll end up gainfully employed some place where your coworkers will be thrilled that you don't leave your lunch things all over the staff room. And that's just for starters. Of course they'll really love it when they don't have to dodge what you're shoveling as you try to avoid admitting that you made the mess and that you should clean it up.
It gets even better. If you grow up to have some position of power, this skill of cleaning up after yourself is going to make you a rare and much sought after breed. If you bring down the company with your bad decisions, you will do whatever has to be done, even make personal sacrifices, to clean up the mess. Your employees will love you, your share holders will love you, and I promise, taxpayers will love you too.
I know right now in 2009, it looks like a big pain in your neck, or whatever, to have to clean up after yourself. But believe me when I say from the bottom of my heart, "I only do this because I love you."
3 comments:
working with a bunch of teenagers who never have had to pick up after themselves...i echo your sentiments :)
Did you listen to "This American Life" the "Watchdogs"? Where this guy stood up in the congressional hearings to say- "We/I, my team we were responsible?" for the melt down of AIG. Wow- you got to respect a guy who could say that when congress was just saying no one was watching AIG and had aggreed that no organization had that responsibility. But how we clean up that mess is beyond me...but it starts with his admiting. I was impressed.
Amen! This is something we stuggle with at our house, too. I just don't understand why the girls choose to take the "several steps" approach (i.e., take off, drop on floor, pick up, put away properly) rather than the two step approach (i.e., take off, put away). I would greatly welcome any ideas on how best to implement this effectively.
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