I read about a Police Officer in Torquay who has just won Lithuania's personality of the year award. Quite how this was achieved has implications for what we should all be trying to achieve at work.
PC Gary Pettengell is an ordinary Bobby on the Beat in Great Yarmouth. He was moved to work on the seafront, and there came into contact with the community's large immigrant Lithuanian population who more often than not were in trouble with the law, usually for acts of petty theft.
So far so unexceptional. It was Gary's response to this which was amazing.
It would have been so easy to think well, crime and immigrants, that's life isn't it? But Gary didn't. Instead he went to the library, got out some language tapes and taught himself some basic Lithuanian in his drive to work. He then went about trying to understand this community, eventually uncovering the other half of the story.
Lithuanians were coming here via dodgy intermediaries and through work agencies who paid them little, and took most of that away on board and lodgings. Some had not eaten for a week, and resorted to crime simply to eat. Gary was disturbed enough to begin to address these problems. Firstly, by posting information on the web about basic services, how to get an NI number, how to access medical care, how to get a bank account. He then lobbied the local Criminal Justice Board to dset up money for a Welcome to Norfolk website which now contains all this information.
Welcome to Norfolk.
This to me is amazing. There is no way I'd do this for my job, I just couldn't be arsed. And there's the indictment. If you can't imagine a situation where you could be bothered to make this sort of effort, why bother to work at all? Gary put meaning into his work by putting his life into it.
Surely, we must all strive to do the same, or risk sliding into old age with nothing to show but flatscreen TVs and buy-to-let houses.
That's why when it comes to career choices and the head v heart debate, it must be the heart that wins, every time.
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3 comments:
What a guy. Earlier today I read a good article on the circumstances that make so-called 'normal' people carry out evil or heroic acts. http://www.edge.org its the main Feature on the home page. You're implying that the right career choice provides the circumstances for good acts? Isn't that making careers the scapegoat?
Very interesting website. Thanks.
I wasn't quite implying that. In fact, Zimbardo's Stanford Experiment is far more applicable to the Mark Of Cain post earlier.
Here I was saying something more mundane. That is, unless you can tell a story about your career which is beyond simply earning money - a mission if you like - then it won't provide satisfaction. I was also implying that unless you can imagine being so engrossed in your job that you'd put this sort of beyond-the-call-of-duty effort into it, you're probably in the wrong one.
The heroism angle is clearly different but equally fascinating and I really thank you for sharing it!
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