Housekeeping

When I was younger, I didn’t understand why restaurants stacked the chairs on the tables at the end of the night to sweep and mop. I mean, I understood it but I didn’t think it was entirely necessary. The floors looked fine.

Then I started working at a restaurant, and my perspective changed.

It wasn’t until I started sweeping the floors that I realized how dirty they got every day. And it wasn’t until I hosed down a kitchen that I realized that an enormous amount of food and…stuff…gets everywhere during business hours.

Not until I rolled silverware and refilled salt and pepper shakers and consolidated condiment containers and folded napkins and replaced soda and refilled ice and left the restaurant after 1am on weekends (more than an hour and a half after the last meal was served) did I appreciate all the work that went into just being able to do business the next day.

I’m often guilty of publishing posts on here with typos and grammatical errors. There’s really no excuse for not proofreading my work carefully or having someone review my content before doing this, but thankfully I have people like David who lend a (regular) hand when I make mistakes.

The broader application of this should be clear.

The product might have shipped, but is it great?

It might be great, but is the world talking about it?

The world might be talking about it, but what’s next?

You might think you’re done, but you might not be finished.

Willie Jackson is a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Consultant & Facilitator with ReadySet, a boutique consulting firm based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is a frequent writer and speaker on the topics of workplace equity, global diversity, and inclusive leadership. Connect on LinkedIn or get in touch.

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