Being Careful and Exact in Our Work

For most, if not all, work, it's important to be careful and exact in all we do. It contributes greatly to a job well done. And it will help to promote stability in our workplace. Today's entries from The Rule of St. Benedict will help us understand the importance of care and exactness.

The opposite of being careful and exactness, being careless and sloppy, will detract from our work. It will cause our workplace to be an unstable place. Why? Being careless in performing our tasks produces poor quality; and/or our tasks will not be done in a timely manner. 

Poor quality undermines the reputation or our company. If a manager's oversight spots the carelessly, sloppily produced result, the work will likely have to be done over again. Not accomplishing our tasks on time not only reflects on us, but easily affects others who work with us, who might, for example, depend on our pulling our weight on a project.

Throughout The Rule of St. Benedict, we find many instances of calm, careful instruction. We find very specific, exact instructions about this or that task or responsibility. St. Benedict must have had tremendous powers of observation. He knew everything that needed to be done in his monasteries. And he had an uncanny ability to communicate the best way or ways to do everything.

He has a lot to say about kitchen service. Yes, kitchen service. Not only is it a basic, and therefore important function in a monastery, but St. Benedict elevates it to a serious and beneficial act charitable service: beneficial to both those served, as well as the servers. It's so important that he instructs everyone to participate in providing this service. Monks take turns (with some minor exceptions).

We Catholic men at work can learn much from two aspects of the entries regarding kitchen service. One is the service itself. The other is the way the service ought to be performed. Let's start with the kitchen service itself. 

"Let the brethren serve one another, and let no one be excused from the kitchen service, unless for sickness or because he is occupied in some business of importance. For this service brings an increase of reward and of charity."

Regarding kitchen service, unless we actually work in such a service business (waiters, counter service, etc.), I don't think we need to be serving lunch to each other on the job. But what about helping out at home? Besides the fact that the days when the woman did all the cooking are long past (for the most part), there's always something that can be done to make family meals a time and place for us all to communicate, to show our love for each other. 

If nothing else, we can make certain that we arrive home - as much as possible - for family meals. And if there are no family meals in your home, consider establishing the practice. I've always been grateful for the years of family meals we had when our kids lived at home.

The family meal (typically dinner/supper) will be a key stable point in the life of a family. And the more stable family life, the more able to bring stability with us to the job, contributing to the stability of our workplace.

Before we move on to the lessons about how service is conducted, a bit more about meals. It's important that we all eat well - as in healthy. Jobs take a lot of our time. Most jobs (at least the ones I've had) are pretty demanding. Eating junk food with lots of carbs and the "bad" kind of fats and oils (which you should know about) wears the body down over time. Sweets and carbs from the company snack machine might give us boost if we're feeling a bit tired or drowsy, but the boost doesn't last long. Plus, over time, it contributes to wear and tear of what we Catholics call our bodies: temples of the Holy Spirit.

So watch what you eat. You really can eat great, delicious stuff that's not bad for you. I've learned this "the hard way" as they say. But having learned my lessons, I can't imagine eating as I once did.

And, oh-by-the-way, it's much easier to be careful and exact in your work when you're not fighting fatigue or, in cases where you're eating habits are particularly gruesome, chronic conditions, even disabilities. 

That does it for the actual kitchen service. Next time we'll get to the way the kitchen service should be performed. We'll learn some good lessons we can apply to our work - lessons about being careful and exact that will improve our results and add to stability in the workplace.