The
last entry I wrote involved something I had learned or noticed on my way TO
work. This one involves something I learned while AT work.
My
assignment for General Conference weekend at Temple Square was still at the
Joseph Smith Building. It was my assignment to keep the glass doors as well as
the observation windows on the 10th floor clean and clear. I would start
on the lobby level, then move to the theater level and then up to the 10th
floor. There are multiple glass entry
doors on both the lobby and theater levels. By the time I would get up to the
observation windows on 10 and clean them, it would be time to check the doors
in the lobby level once again. Each time, I would find new smudges somewhere on
the doors. Usually the smudges were below the door push bar and were those of
smaller hands, but there were a great number of larger prints and smudges above
the push bar. Sometimes I would watch people walk through a door, putting their
hands on the glass I had JUST finished cleaning.
Early in the shift, I had just
finished cleaning a door and was cleaning the one next to it. A little girl and
her father walked up to my freshly cleaned door and the little girl put her
hand on the door to push it open. (keep in mind that I was still standing right
there, holding the tool I use for cleaning, and wearing a vest that clearly
identified me as a custodian) While the girl was pushing the door, her dad
said, “Why don’t you push it with both hands.” His daughter put her second hand
on the door. She was doing fine with the door and then the father said, “Put
your forehead on the door and that will help you too.” Which she did. I’m
pretty sure he did that because he saw me standing there. (I have never told
ANYONE to use their forehead to help open a door and can only guess he knew the
resulting smudge that would ensue.) The daughter dutifully did as counseled and
a nice big smudge appeared above the two smaller ones. The two walked through
and I stepped over back to a door that I had cleaned less than a minute before
which was now dirty again. I was a little put out because of the seemingly deliberate
effort the dad put into getting his daughter to mess up the door, but I cleaned
it again. It took maybe 5-10 seconds and the door was clear and spotless again.
Later
in the evening, I was cleaning another door and I stepped outside to clean that
side of the door. A security person was walking by and he stopped and said, “I
just wanted to tell you how great a job you guys do on keeping those doors
clean and clear. I always try to remember to use the door push rather than put
my hands on the glass, but I know that sometimes I forget. Then I will walk by
a door a little later and see someone cleaning it and I think to myself, ‘I
hope I didn’t make one of those smudges.’”
I told him thanks for the kind words about the good work we do and then
told him not to worry about the smudges he may cause, because that’s what we’re
here for. We both then went back to our respective duties.
A bit
later in the night I found myself thinking back on both of those experiences with a different perspective. In our lives, we, hopefully, try to not get smudges on our souls and our lives. We use the “door
push” and all is fine. Unfortunately, there are times where outside sources
will say, “Why not put both hands AND your forehead on that glass.” Other time
we may add a smudge by accident or simply by being careless or thoughtless. The
difference for me was how one person was genuinely sorry for any small smudge
and the other (the little girl) didn’t even realize what she had done, but in
either case, the door was cleaned. In our
lives, our Savior is standing there with the tool he used (the atonement) to simply
wipe away the smudges we make. When we say, “I hope I haven’t added to the
problem.” He simply says, “Don’t worry. That’s why I’m hear.”
