a big company. He passed
the initial interview, and now would meet the director for
the final interview. The
director discovered from his CV that the youth’s academic
achievements were
excellent. He asked, “Did you obtain any scholarships in
school?” the youth answered
“no”.
” Was it your father who paid for your school fees?” "My
father passed away when I
was one year old, it was my mother who paid for my
school fees.” he replied.
” Where did your mother work?” “My mother worked as
clothes cleaner.”
The director requested the youth to show his hands. The
youth showed a pair of
hands that were smooth and perfect. ” Have you ever
helped your mother wash the
clothes before?”
“Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read
more books. Besides, my
mother can wash clothes faster than me. The director
said, “I have a request. When
you go home today, go and clean your mother’s hands,
and then see me tomorrow
morning.
The youth felt that his chance of landing the job was high.
When he went back home,
he asked his mother to let him clean her hands. His
mother felt strange, happy but
with mixed feelings, she showed her hands to her son.
The youth cleaned his mother’s hands slowly. His tear fell
as he did that. It was the
first time he noticed that his mother’s hands were so
wrinkled, and there were so
many bruises in her hands. Some bruises were so painful
that his mother winced
when he touched it.
This was the first time the youth realized that it was this
pair of hands that washed
the clothes everyday to enable him to pay the school fees.
The bruises in the
mother’s hands were the price that the mother had to pay
for his education, his
school activities and his future.
After cleaning his mother hands, the youth quietly washed
all the remaining clothes
for his mother.
That night, mother and son talked for a very long time.
Next morning, the youth went to the director’s office.
The Director noticed the tears in the youth’s eyes, when he
asked: “Can you tell me
what have you done and learned yesterday in your house?”
The youth answered,” I cleaned my mother’s hand, and
also finished cleaning all the
remaining clothes’
“I know now what appreciation is. Without my mother, I
would not be who I am
today. By helping my mother, only now do I realize how
difficult and tough it is to get
something done on your own.
The director said, “This is what I am looking for in a
manager. I want to recruit a
person who can appreciate the help of others, a person
who knows the sufferings of
others to get things done, and a person who would not put
money as his only goal in
life.”
“You are hired.”
This young person worked very hard, and received the
respect of his subordinates.
Every employee worked diligently and worked as a team.
The company’s performance
improved tremendously.
A child, who has been protected and habitually given
whatever he wanted, would
develop an “entitlement mentality” and would always put
himself first. He would be
ignorant of his parent’s efforts. When he starts work, he
assumes that every person
must listen to him, and when he becomes a manager, he
would never know the
sufferings of his employees and would always blame
others.
You can let your child live in a big house, eat a good meal,
learn piano, watch on a
big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let
them experience it. After a
meal, let them wash their plates and bowls together with
their brothers and sisters. It
is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but
it is because you want to
love them in a right way. You want them to understand, no
matter how rich their
parents are, one day their hair will grow gray, same as the
mother of that young
person. The most important thing is your child learns how
to appreciate the effort
and experience the difficulty and learns the ability to work
with others to get things
done.
Try to forward this story to as many as possible…this may
change somebody’s fate.