Page 34 - 4289 SaluteNB

the dignity of work

H story And Photos by terence corriGAn And liAnn houchens

Bringing in the sheaves. A Flat Creek farmer harvests
a crop of hay. Photo by Terence Corrigan.

f a person works 40 hours a week for 50 years, from their
18th birthday to their 68th birthday, they will have spent
I104,000 hours working.
when we want to have a portrait photo made we generally
don’t have it done at work. we dress up and visit a professional
portrait studio. for many people, having a portrait photo
taken is an uncomfortable experience and often the result is
not entirely satisfying. It is usually evident in the photo that
the subject is not relaxed and comfortable. for some people,
the resulting photo does not even look accurate.
people are often most at ease at work. It is at work that
people’s dignity seems to be at its highest level. work is an
important part of our feeling of self-worth.
what is dignity?
According to Donna hicks, ph.D, “the most common
response people offer is that dignity is about respect.” but
hicks does not consider dignity and respect as quite the same
thing. “Dignity is our inherent value and worth as human
beings; everyone is born with it,” she writes. “respect, on the
other hand, is earned through one’s actions.”
It would seem, however, that being treated with respect,
especially at work, is the clearest pathway for a person to
flourish and fully experience and express their own personal
dignity.
one of the tasks we settled on for salute magazine this
year was to show a few bedford county residents at work, to
show the dignity of people at work, to create environmental Wayne Campbell has been the owner of
portraits. H Wayne’s Auto Repair in Shelbyville for 18 years.
Photo by Liann Houchens.
30 Salute