Teamwork

My central heater wasn’t working properly. My landlord lives above me, which is useful in these sorts of situations. I heard him on the stairs in the hallway, asked him to come in and explained the problem. He would send somebody to fix it, he promised. And so he did, the very next day. And I witnessed in my home something I see all too often here: not only the heater guy came, but also his helper, and the landlord himself, and his teenager son, who will probably be a landlord himself one day, and who is, I guess, learning the job. I offered them all house slippers, as they were nice enough to take off their dirty shoes before they came in. And there they were, three men doing nothing but watch the fourth one work. They were all looking very seriously at the work in progress. Fifteen minutes later, the heater was fixed. They took their slippers off, they all shook my hand and I thanked them a lot. Teamwork, I love it.