It is your job
It was on my morning commute when I first saw it. Not just any ole pothole. This was a big one. I dodged it, but I wondered if someone else might not be so lucky.
Some potholes you can cruise over, no big deal. But others can shred a tire or cause an accident. This isn’t about an unfortunate run-in with the hole in the road. This is about its repair job.
After a few days off, I hopped on the highway again, heading west toward Colorado’s front range. Sunrise painted the sky and mountains soft shades of orange and pink. I’d forgotten all about the pothole. Until I saw it again.
I rolled right over it, hardly feeling a bump. It was repaired. No more hole in road. In its place was a scab. Safe enough to drive on going 65 in the left lane. I might not have even noticed it, if it wasn’t for the mess surrounding it.
I don’t know how many miles had passed, but my thoughts wouldn’t leave the crime scene. Because that’s what it was, that’s what it felt like.
The pothole was on the left side of the left lane, hugging the curb of a raised median that separates this six-lane state highway. It was as if the pothole had vomited onto the median. Chunks of black asphalt left in piles.
During its final moments, the hole in the street had spewed its contents in an act of rebellion. Wishing it didn’t have to be filled in, only to blend in with the rest of the flat surface. It wanted to stand out, it wanted to be special, to be a whole lotta hole! But now it has to conform, to be a hole-that-was instead of a hole-that-is.
Humans noticed this pothole. They repaired it. And then they left an eye sore. It bothered me. The sunrise was even better than the previous day, even more beautiful. But it couldn’t distract me from my thoughts about this repair job.
Someone had decided, “That’s not my job.” I’m guessing this was the fixer. His job was to fill the hole. And he’d done just that. But in order for him to fix it, he had to make a mess. Pick out the chunks, large and small, that gathered in the hole during its development when many wheels had greeted it. Build a pile of rubble on the median. Fill in the hole, smooth it over, onto the next one.
I imagine him standing there, with a freshly repaired scab healing in the sunshine. He looks down at his handiwork and smiles. Then he pivots to the pile of asphalt puke. I wonder what he was thinking in that moment.
“Could probably fill up a bucket real quick, wouldn’t take too long. Maybe could carry it in one hand with my tools in the other.”
That’s not my job, he thinks. That’s the other guy, the highway safety patrol. They clean up the messes, right? They called me to fix stuff, and I fixed it. I’m the fixer, and that’s all I’m gonna do.
He pulls up his tool belt, adjusts his hat, kicks a pebble onto the road as cars pass by in both directions. “That’s not my job.”
Fixes a problem, but leaves a mess. How often does this happen?
You’re at the deli, finishing a sandwich. You clean up your napkins and empty drink cup. The table next to you left a few scraps and crumbs. It would take a grand total of five seconds to do a good deed. Clean up after the guy who left in a hurry. But you don’t, it’s not your job, you think.
How much greater would every city, every country be if we all adopted the mindset that it is your job. It is your job. Take the extra few seconds to do the right thing. Leave it better than you found it. Nobody will applaud you for this effort. They won’t notice you’d done anything at all, because you didn’t leave a mess, and you cleaned up the other guy’s mess. You did your job.
I could’ve cruised over that pothole without even knowing. Enjoyed the sunrise and whatever else my brain was pondering as I sipped my coffee.
Instead, it was noticeable. The evidence of a messy repair, the thoughts of how and why this happens. The internal battle of asking myself, “If I was the fixer, what would I have done?”
The morning commute is different now, it’s changed. I’m reminded to do a little bit extra today and every day. To fill up my bucket with the debris of the earth. To help my fellow man and the places we inhabit. It’s my job.
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loved this one!