Lessons on Work ethics while getting my shoes polished

Recently, I went to a roadside cobbler(mochi) to get my shoes polished. 

I am trying to use the mobile phone as less as possible so I put it in my pocket and watching the cobbler work. 

After watching leisurely for a few minutes, I got seriously interested in his work.

He was working on my shoes with the utmost sincerity. 

He took out the lace of my shows and de-dusted them. 

He offered me his slippers while I wait to get my shoes polished.

He applied a dash of polish to it to bring back the black color. 

He applied a layer of wax and then a layer of polish. 

The shows were shining bright like new.  

I paid him money and while walking back, I thought this guy doesn't expect Appreciation. He doesn't expect a hike. There might not be any change in his life even if he continues to work with the same ethics for his entire life. He will only get what the market rate for shoe polish is.

And I started drawing parallels to how we typically work. 

We too do quality work but there are expectations associated with it. Take out the carrots of salary hike and promotions and we might be least concerned with quality in our work.

For the cobbler, doing quality work is his survival. If he doesn't do, he will surely lose customers. But if he does quality work, there is no guarantee that he will get more customers. Such is the irnoy of being in survival mode.

As they say, the problems that we crib out are elite class problems. Because they are not associated with our survival, they are associated with our expectations and aspirations...

I am trying to say we shouldn't expect hike and promotion at work, I am just trying to highlight the work ethic of the roadside cobbler and significance of it for his survival. 

Every time I feel like not giving my 100%, I think about the cobbler and how he works...

Maybe this is leadership and what is called as lead without a title

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay