_The signals along the track turn to red and the trains stop. When the road vehicles slow to a stop, their brake lights glow. Milimetrically small advertising hoardings having changing electronic pictures on them, fans in the Hamburg football stadium have flags that tey wave periodically. On top of al that there are the mini-scenes within the different worlds; the frogmen diving a river to find the corpse; Pippi Longstocking lifting a horse in a village; gnomes working in a mountain cave; a couple making love in the middle of a field of sunflowers.
Watching some of the workers bent over their desks painting the tiny figures, you wonder what drives them. They are investing time to provide details that most of the visitors might never spot. Presumably they enjoy what they do - given some of their unergonomic desk positions, I hope they aren't being forced to work their. I'm guessing they even love what they do and get a kick out of including the little details into their worlds. Maybe people spotting the scuba-diving cows makes the workers smile as well. Yes, you could argue that they must simply be detail-focussed people and I would agree in part - they could never cope with the job otherwise. However, the level of intricacy goes beyond mere attention, moving into a passionate love of detail.
Which bits of your job do you love doing? What is there in your normal day or week or month that gets you interested more than the rest of the drudgery? Yes, the MW people need to make sure that the trains all run to the schedule and don't crash, that lights come on when 'night time' happens so that the basics of the wonderland work. They could stop there, but actually its all the exciting little extras that make the place so fascinating for everyone from 3 to 83, judging by the rapt attention of the visitors I saw.
Lots has been written about finding meaning in our work and maybe at the start of the year we need to re-examine what we do. Can we find an analogy to painting today's person faster than yesterday's, making it a neater job, with more colourful clothes? Maybe there are little scenarios we can include that make people smile or big thigs we can create that make people gasp. How can we relate differently to our boss, our colleagues or our visitors in order to make them feel better or for us to enjoy our days more? Its true what people say that the more you put in the more you get out; it might mean we have to give a little extra but isn't that worth it? Iif we enjoy our work more, how much more will that contribute to our happiness and mental well-being?

Lindsay came home from having watched the Royal Wedding at Seasons and was giving me lots of juicy details. I struggled manfully to show interest but to little avail. It got me thinking though about all the pomp and  circumstance surrounding the event at Westminster Abbey and what that must have meant for the people working there. Has it been lots of stress getting ready for such a high profile happening - probably. Has there been lots of excitement at the thought of royalty coming to call - again, probably. What about the royal patronage bestowing extra meaning on the work that they do on a daily basis?

If the Royal Family arrive to make use of your facilities, in this case the services offered by the Abbey, does that make what you do more worthwhile? What if it was the Royle family instead? Are we more proud of the work we do for elevated and important people than we are for the lowly and humble of this world?

I suspect some of this comes down to who we are ourselves - if our mission in life is to help the downtrodden in some way then we will have no real interest (or in fact market) amongst executives and nobles. Similarly, it might reflect on our chosen profession. Whether I coach  adolescents or account managers, the meaning for me comes not from who they are but how much difference I make, how well they are helped along their journey - something which often isn't immediately apparent and certainly can't be judged or evaluated before the event.
I can well imagine though that if you are designing something for Joe Bloggs in the street or a similar item for Lady Jo Bloggs of Axminster, you are likely to invest more time and effort in the latter case. Likewise, if I walk into a shop twice, firstly unshaven and a little scruffy but wearing a suit on the second occasion I will be treated completely differently. Does this just come down to economics or is this about meaning? Is it common sense marketing based on people higher up the foodchain having more money to throw at you or is it pride and pleasure coming from working for someone more important?

People are people though. All worthy of respect, all due our best, whoever they are. Is it therefore arrogance to assign special meaning to working with particular groups? If we succeed in making life better for only one person, should it matter to us who that person is, or do we need the fillip of having served a name that can be dropped in conversation later?

Whatever the reasons though, its probably true that someone cleaning a cathedral toilet for a royal bottom to rest on is more likely to put their all into the task, to do it with more than the normal due diligence, to exceed expectations. What about you?