IrishOboe

The other day I was walking back home after taking Joseph for a swim when I saw a garbage man sweeping up spilled garbage with a broom and dustpan.  I’m always seeing Swiss state employees cleaning up the messes people leave around and it’s made me re-think the idea that the Swiss are clean.  Are they any cleanlier than other folks or do they just pay for people to pick up the mess?  Probably they feed on each other, as folks are less likely to trash a place that’s clean than one that’s already messy.  But for whatever the reason, I appreciate Swiss cleanliness, especially now that I have a child who wants to explore everything on the ground.  Thinking of all this in the time it took me to reach the man cleaning up the mess I decided to thank him.  He looked up from his work startled and speechless but recovered just in time to say “bitte” before I was out of ear shot.  His look said to me “Why are you thanking me?  I’m just doing my job, lady.”  Well, in some countries, a garbage man’s job description doesn’t include cleaning up after irresponsible citizens who can’t pack garbage properly.  He might never have imagined that garbage men around the world are any different from him.  Why would he unless he’d spent significant time in another place or talking with foreigners?  I appreciated his graciousness despite my odd and unnecessary thanks.  It occurred to me that musicians have to learn this graciousness from an early age.  We’re thanked for doing our job much more than the average garbage man and our natural reaction is something like “We’re just doing our job and that comment shows you know nothing about it.”  Mom taught me that that’s not nice.  We have to learn to say “thank you” and be content knowing that doing our job brightened someone’s day.  That’s a compliment anyone should be happy to receive.