A Lasting Impression or The Sausage and the Printer

One of the good things about my day job is that I get to listen to my iPod while I do it. If I'm not on the phone or in a meeting, I can listen to whatever I want. Most of the time, I listen to podcasts. Most of these are incredibly lame, catering to my darkest geek desires, but a couple of them are thought provoking and maybe even moving. I heard two stories recently that I thought I would share.

There once was a sausage factory. An old, dirty, windy building full of hallways and rooms. One day, they built a brand-new-state-of-the-art factory across town. It was white, stainless steel, and made the most use out of their space, the refrigeration unit was right next to the packing machine so they could be cooled as soon as they were ready. Everything was great, except that the sausages didn't taste the same. Or look the same. They weren't as crisp or as red. And they couldn't figure out what was the matter. The recipe was the same, the way they cooked them was the same. They spent months trying to figure out what was different. Then they finally figured it out. Irving. Irving was different. See, Irving used to work for them at the old building, but he didn't make the transition to the new place, it was too far from his home. His job was to move the freshly packed sausages to the freezer room, and he would have to wind through hallways and past other people working, and Irving was a friendly guy, so it wasn't a quick trip. Turns out, that is what made the sausages red and bursty. Irving's trip. So they had to add a room to their new building saying, "We shoulda called it 'Irving's Corner'."

Let me tell you about Matt. Matt works in the hallway by a printer in a busy office. He doesn't have anything to do with the printer, he just happens to work by it. Most of the conversations he has relate to the printer in some way."Hey did you take my printouts?" "Have you seen my printouts?" or just small talk. Most people don't even know his name. To most of the other people in the office, he is "The guy by the printer". When asked, he didn't even know. He said that he sees some of those people upwards of 30-40 times a day. Every day. By the printer.
He says that he's started to dream about the printer. He'll be at a party, a dream party, and he'll look over, and there is the printer. Quietly humming away. Or jamming. Sitting there, off to the side, keeping him company with it's monotone voice.

For most of us, we don't' work in a vacuum. We work with people, or for people. We have the opportunity to impact the people around us, to be significant. I think God wants us to be Irvings, not Matts. I know which one I would rather be.