A WorkLife Lesson: Reggie’s Story: The Significance of Core Characteristics to Continuously Drive WorkLives
Reggie’s is a contemporary story, but it starts a long time ago, all the way back to 1936, when aged ten, to help and support his family, he began his WorkLife in the fish-and-chip industry when he got a weekend job cutting up newspapers to wrap the takeaways in.
Fast forward several decades, and Reggie is still on hand, lending a hand and regaling customers with stories from the Second World War when he was in his early teens: how he played his part in keeping morale among Londoners high by serving up their favourite British food staple. Reggie was known to quote Churchill when he called fish and chips our “good companions”. According to Reggie, Churchill, in recognising the importance of the meal to the national morale and fighting spirit of a nation at war, was the reason he made it the one food that was never rationed. (From WorkLife Book Club Volume One Shoreditch by Carmel O’ Reilly — Me).
Maintaining good morale, his own and other people’s is one of Reggie’s core characteristics that has driven his WorkLife, and one that he can attribute to wartime and learning taken from Ralph, an American serviceman stationed in Britain, who Reggie got to know when Ralph stopped by for a regular fish and chip supper.
Ralph always carried a miniature-sized paperback in his breast pocket and would sit and read awhile over his meal. As they became aquatinted, Ralph shared with Reggie the story behind the pocketbooks. How the recognition that soldiers surrounded by the horrors of war needed books to make their lives bearable brought over 70 book companies together to create a paperback designed for America's service members: the Armed Services Edition. Sized to fit inside the hip or breast pocket of a military uniform, these miniature books were carried into battle, hospitals, and enemy lands where books had been banned and burned.
Words of Wisdom
On asking if he had a favourite book, Ralph’s immediate response was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. He said that the book was sent to the front line to improve morale and how on reading it, he felt alive again. He said at a time when he felt lost hope for his future, the book instilled a belief that he had a fighting chance to survive.
Seeing how his story had piqued Reggie’s curiosity, the next time he stopped by, Ralph lent him the book.
In this lesson, you will learn the 3 simple lessons Reggie took from the book that has guided him ever since to love his WorkLife through all its ups and downs.
You will learn how Reggie’s chance encounter with Ralph was the beginning of a lifelong friendship, one that began from a place of understanding the importance of morale as a core characteristic in driving people’s WorkLives.
You will learn how this encounter was also the beginning of a lifelong love of learning through reading for Reggie, one that he has shared with many people over the years.
In this lesson’s WorkLife Learning Assignment, you will learn how to apply the 3 Simple Lessons in Learning to Love Your WorkLife.
In this lesson’s Continuous WorkLife Learning Assignment, you will consider one of your core characteristics and identify how you can use it to continuously drive your WorkLife.