When I was first starting out in the work world, I had a number of part-time jobs, many of them involving office work. One of the more interesting ones was in Greenwich Village during the late 1970s. I was hired as a stocker and packer to work in the basement of a company that dealt in the buying and selling of magazines and books. I remember the basement job very well because whiffs of natural gas would breeze through at different times during the day. Whether it was a truly safe place to work I cannot say, but I doubt that there were annual inspections of the basement. Shipments would come in and we would pack them out for sorting and registration afterwards. It was a backbreaking job to say the least, but I enjoyed the experience of learning and experiencing what the company did. Private persons would contact the company with offers to sell complete collections of magazines, which then were sold further to libraries and schools and the like. There were many libraries at that time that wanted complete collections of National Geographic, to give one example, and they would contact the company for info about whether we had complete collection(s). We did for the most part.
I don't remember how long I worked in the basement before I was 'promoted' to an upstairs job in the main office. My boss was a middle-aged woman by the name of Terry, and she told me that she wanted me to learn the other side of the business, namely the registration part of the process as well as how to process purchase requests and invoices. I found this side of the business very interesting and was good at it. She treated me very well for someone who was just a part-time employee. I got the feeling that she was hoping that I would stay on and become a full-time employee, but she understood that I had other plans. We often ate lunch at some of the nearby diners and cafes, and she and another woman, who also worked in the office, would tell me about their lives and career dreams. Terry was a pragmatic no-nonsense woman and I liked her immediately. She treated me very well, and also dished out career advice at different points.
I will always remember and have always remembered (in bad times) what she told me one day at lunch. 'No one is indispensable'. What she meant was that no one in the work world was that important that he or she could not be replaced. It was a valuable piece of advice that served me well, especially in the less happy times of my academic career. I call it 'lessons in humility'. I understood that I should never think of myself or what I did for any company as irreplaceable. I learned that I was replaceable. Terry knew it about herself and she imparted that wisdom to me, and I thank her for that and for believing in me.
Nowadays, given the insane behavior of the political leaders running the show (at least in the USA), I think that they should be force-fed this wisdom. For starters, they are replaceable, and they should remember that, but I doubt they even consider that aspect. Some of them are so old that natural death could be responsible for their exit. But more likely, the political system in place takes care of such things. Politicians are voted in and out after a number of years, and thank God for that, even though the same politician (in Congress at least) can occupy the same position for many years. We as a country need to change that. Change will come. But humility should come first. The idea of service to others and to country should come first. Right now it doesn't. But they should remember that 'pride comes before a fall'. Their fall from the lofty heights where they live won't be pleasant for any of them. But it will be necessary since they failed to understand that they are indeed replaceable.
