day 1951: “You Had One Job”

“Whatever you do, do well.  For when you go to the grave, there will be no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom.”

There is a Twitter meme called, “You had one job”.  It basically pokes fun at those who had a job to do that seems relatively simple, but because of lack of attention, or something else, the job gets messed up and it is just funny to imagine that it would happen.  It’s a little crass, but you’ll get the idea when you see the picture of the toilet seat in a public bathroom that was installed with the cover part below the sitting part.  Who would do that and why?  We never find out but it’s not unimaginable that someone was having a bad day, or was being rushed, or wasn’t given the right directions (although hard to imagine in the example given).  My first job out of graduate school was at a place where we built airplane engines.  Even not knowing much at all about corporate work, I could see that every day people came to work with their own problems, issues, concerns, and distractions and that any of those could cause, and many times did cause, mistakes to happen and then rework to be required.  While an improperly installed toilet seat can be inconvenient and funny, one job not done correctly in an airplane engine can cost lives.  Until humans are not a part of work, we need to consider that humanity can have a large impact on how that work gets done, or not.

Whatever our earthly work is, we are serving God well when we do it to our best and with the greatest attention to detail, quality and achievement.  We might be wondering what are we doing to make a difference, but look no further than the work in front of you to know that when our best is being done, God is pleased.

Reference: Ecclesiastes 9:10

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *