Earlier this evening I saw the ad for Christian Aid Week which made me think of my dad as he delivers and collects envelopes for this. I like the ad as it shows the 'teach a man to fish' attitude well. It also made me think about how that each person in my immediate family has at least one item of 'service work' within their social life. I think this makes one a better person, although this sometimes goes against what I am expected in attitude as a Civil Engineer where generally contracts = confrontation & being well, not a nice caring person at times. This is maybe why I think I'm not a good engineer because I care about the people I have to tell what to do too much. I just can't be the hard nosed uncaring engineer that float around in this industry .. mind you this does mean that I generally have less confrontation and better working with Contractors as they see me as being a reasonable human being.

But back to the 'service' thing. My mum, sister & I are all Guiders and my dad, 'Mr Panda' is a willing supporter (with his estate car) and always has been since I started as a Brownie. He is an active Rotarian (so starting a bit of Rotarian Daughters network) and sits on the L'Arche committee which came from his service work with the Rotary club & active membership of their church. My dad gets a lot of enjoyment from seeing the delight and achievement of the people in the L'arche Communities from what may seem very easy things to the general populus. Some of the people in the communities work, although they ensure that the community members are paid a decent wage for what they do and not seen as a cheap employee.

I wonder in the workplaces I have been in whether people without this service element in their life can get true fulfilment in seeing somebody flourish and achieve knowing that you have helped in the process. This is probably why I've settled into my current workplace much more than my previous one. At my current workplace most people have something they feel passionate about whether it be sailing, diving or running but they all are active in their clubs ... however nobody at my old workplace seemed to have something they 'did' and it seemed they just went home and did nothing after work ... hence ending up being rather dull and selfish people. They really couldn't understand why I was very willing to raise a load of money to spend 3 weeks of leave (well I wangled a week of special leave, which some people got huffy about) & numerous weekends of planning to train Guiders and Rangers in Bangladesh in the name of Guiding. I got a lot out of it and Bangladesh still has a place in my heart even after all the smog and years!

So readership (who I guess all have at least one bit of service in their lives) smile in the knowledge of the number of people whose lives you have changed by teaching them to (metaphorically) fish for life.

... on another note .. why doesn't the new blogger dashboard work on Netscape? I'm having to use Internet Explorer :(