I read a story once. A teacher handed out a test to his students, and one of the questions was "What is the janitor's name?" No one knew, and everyone left the question blank.
The teacher's point was that everyone should be treated with dignity as a person. Just because a person cleaned toilets and gathered trash around a school didn't mean he was any less valuable or lacked a personality, wants, dreams, and a life, just like anyone else.
We need to see the importance of valuing other people, even the ones we conveniently dismiss. Learning the name of every person they came in contact with regularly should be your goal, he said. Because they matter just as much as you do.
So now every time the Mexican lady comes by to pick up the trash in our department, I smile at her. I haven't learned her name yet, but I will.
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