Strike Mentality

I am not talking about baseball… But I wish I was!

I’m going to get a little political here but I need to vent! I am in France at the moment in a little town in the outskirts of the city of Bordeaux. It is a pretty upper middle class area, a bit rural becoming more city like, not poor, not rich, just slightly above average as far as standard of living goes.

The town has an “aquatic center”, basically a 25-meter pool, with a splashing pool for kids, a hang out tub with is supposed to be a hot tub but that’s actually never hot and 2 saunas. It is a very nice design and usually quite full. Especially bearing in mind the few hours that it is open to the public given that it is a public pool, subsidized by government and run by civil servants. When it is not open to the public, it is sometimes reserved for local schools, which is only fair.

Now I am sure that the running of the pool takes some effort, but I can tell you for sure that people employed there are far from being overworked! And yet, today they are on strike! Yes, on strike. Not because they are unhappy about their working conditions, but because there is a national strike movement in France today. So they strike.
Now I am really mad about this today because I had planned, since yesterday, to do my workout there and also to soak in the sauna for a bit to feel the heat that’s been seriously missing in France the past few weeks! I really respect people’s rights and I would be totally behind them if I could see one little reason why they should strike. But frankly, in this case, it is point blank laziness and poor service.

As I like to think that something good always comes out of everything, I felt inspired and it made me think that this could actually lead to a good blog post. So here we are. I got to think about these people’s attitude and how it can be compared to the attitude of some kids at school.

The reality is that these employees just take their job for granted and do not give it their best. If they only stopped and thought for a minute, they would realize how lucky they are to work in such a place. They would also realize that they don’t just have a right to claim that they want to strike out of solidarity for those who might have a reason, but they also have a DUTY towards the public, towards the people of the city and the surrounding areas, towards the kids in schools, to actually serve them! And they should feel happy and proud that they are given this chance, not only to serve people but to do it in good conditions.

This is what many kids are missing these days: a sense of pride and gratitude for what they have. Education is a privilege, in any part of the world. Whether it is served to you on a plate or you have to fight for it. It is a privilege to be able to learn, to be able to express yourself. In some countries, girls get attacked and abused on their way to school because a system feels that women should not learn. In some countries, kids walk miles everyday to make it to school. In some countries, kids never have the chance to make it to a place where they can learn anything.

I am a true believer that a lot of things need to be improved in education, but it is still way better than in many other places. However, I also strongly believe that it is what we have right now and we must make the most of it. Each child needs to be shown their luck and encouraged to give it their best. Anything that you don’t really try hard will soon become boring and any excuse will be good to go on “strike” and the ripple effect is that it becomes more and more boring.

Life is about giving your best in everything that you do. Then you get it all back. Whatever you’ve been giving is what will come back to you.

I’m not sure how happy and fulfilled these people are at the pool today. I would feel pretty lousy about myself. Times are tough here too and I wonder how they would feel if they lost their job today. I wonder if they would regret not serving people today.

If we want kids to grow into successful adults, we need to instill in them, as young as possible, as sense of always giving their fullest to everything they do.

Let’s ponder about this… I’m going for a run instead. The sun is finally out! I should catch the rays before they disappear again!