---------- Forwarded message --------- From: N Sekar <[email protected]> Date: Sun, Nov 23, 2025, 12:13 PM Subject: Fwd - Dignity of labour, among other lessons this teaches us To: Kerala Iyer <[email protected]>, Narayanaswamy Sekar < [email protected]>, Suryanarayana Ambadipudi <[email protected]>, Rangarajan T.N.C. <[email protected]>, Chittanandam V. R. < [email protected]>, Mathangi K. Kumar <[email protected]>, Mani APS <[email protected]>, Rama (Iyer 123 Group) <[email protected]>, Srinivasan Sridharan <[email protected]>, Surendra Varma < [email protected]>
The man wearing a three-thousand-dollar suit glanced at my hands and asked if I was there to fix the air conditioning. My hands are thick. The knuckles are scarred from years of busted wrenches, and there’s a permanent line of grease under my nails that no amount of scrubbing will remove. I looked at his hands—smooth, pale, and topped with a heavy gold watch. “No, sir,” I said, my voice too deep for the quiet high school library. “I’m here for Career Day. I’m Jason’s dad.” His smile was polite, but his eyes said everything: *You?* My name is Mike. I’m 58. For thirty of those years, I’ve been a long-haul truck driver. I’m a widower, a veteran, and a father. My son Jason is a good kid, a senior at this polished suburban school where I feel about as welcome as a mudflap at a black-tie gala. This school was my late wife Sarah’s world. She was a teacher here—she loved these halls and these students. After she passed, the school created a scholarship in her name. And when Jason, bless his heart, told his teacher I was a “logistics and supply chain expert” and should speak at Career Day, I couldn’t say no. It felt like saying no to her. So I came. I parked my F-150—the one I’m still making payments on—between a brand-new German sedan and a luxury electric SUV. I walked in wearing my best jeans, a clean flannel shirt, and work boots. The library was filled with the parent all-stars. Dr. Chen, a neurosurgeon, showed a slick video about brain mapping. Mr. Davies, the man with the watch, spoke next about investment strategies, “leveraging assets,” and “Q4 projections.” He said the word “synergy” five times. The kids’ eyes were dull with boredom. Parents nodded like they understood. My son Jason slouched in the back, trying to disappear. Then the principal touched my shoulder. “Mr. Riley? You’re up.” I walked to the front. No PowerPoint. No video. Just me. I could feel the judgment in the room. The whispers from moms in yoga pants: *Is he the janitor? Whose dad is that?* I gripped the wooden podium—Sarah once stood at this very spot. I took a breath. “Good morning,” I said. My voice echoed. “My name is Mike Riley. I’m not a doctor or an investment guy. I didn’t finish college. I’m a truck driver.” The silence shifted—from polite attention to uneasy curiosity. The finance dad glanced at his phone. “My son calls me a ‘logistics expert,’ which is a fancy way of saying I drive a big truck a very long way. And I guess I’m here to explain why that matters.” I nodded toward Dr. Chen. “Ma’am, what you do is extraordinary. You save lives. But that brain-mapping machine you use—those microchips, wires, and plastic—they didn’t appear from thin air. They came from factories, got loaded on pallets, strapped onto trucks, and hauled thousands of miles by people like me.” I turned to the finance dad. “Sir, your graphs are impressive. But those numbers stand for real things. Corn from Iowa. Steel from Ohio. Electronics from California ports. This country isn’t a website or an algorithm—it’s a real place. And the only thing connecting it is the highway. And the people who won’t stop driving on it.” The room went silent. “In March 2020,” I continued, “when the world shut down, you all stayed home. You baked bread. You did puzzles. We were told: *keep driving.* The highways were empty—like a scene from a disaster movie. Just me and 40,000 pounds of toilet paper. You can laugh. But my dispatcher called me crying because her mother couldn’t find any. And I drove 18 hours through three states because if I didn’t, shelves stayed empty. You can’t Zoom a five-pound bag of potatoes. You can’t download sanitizer.” Teachers nodded. Students leaned forward. “Two winters ago, I was stuck on I-80 in Wyoming. Blizzard shut down the state. I sat in my cab for 72 hours. It was 20 below. I couldn’t sleep—not because of the cold, but because of the sound. The hum. The hum of the refrigeration unit on my trailer. I was hauling insulin. Life-saving medicine. If that unit stopped… if I ran out of fuel… the whole load was worthless. But I wasn’t thinking about money. I thought about the grandmother in Denver, the kid in Omaha. So I stayed. I checked the temperature every half hour. For three days. I served 12 years in the Army. I thought nothing would be harder. I was wrong.” I looked for Jason. He was sitting straight now. Focused. A kid in the front, wearing a “Future CEO” shirt, raised his hand. “Don’t you regret it? Not going to college? My dad says people in jobs like that just… didn’t have other options.” The room froze. I heard the principal gasp. I looked at the boy. Calm. “Son, I respect your path. But when the power goes out, your degree won’t turn the lights back on. You call a lineman. When your toilet backs up, your business textbook won’t fix the pipes. You call a plumber. And when you walk into a store, you expect food on shelves. You expect life to run smoothly. We are the people who make the world work. Don’t ever think we’re not proud of that.” A voice broke through—shaking. “My mom’s a dispatcher.” A skinny kid in the back stood up, tears in his eyes. “She works for a shipping company. People yell at her all day. They call her stupid when a package is late. But she’s the one who finds a driver when a hospital needs supplies. She works overnight, on holidays, moving dots on a screen to save lives. She’s not stupid.” He looked at the CEO shirt kid. “She’s a hero. And so is he.” You could hear a pin drop. The finance man put down his phone. The neurosurgeon looked at her hands. And Jason walked to the front and stood beside me. He put his arm around me. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. I don’t remember much after that. I think people clapped. The principal shook my hand with tears in her eyes. Driving home, Jason was quiet. Then he said, “Dad… I never knew about the insulin. That was incredible.” “It’s just the job,” I said. “No,” he replied. “It’s not just a job.” Here’s the truth: This country isn’t built on spreadsheets or code alone. It’s built on calluses. On sweat. On steel. On the backs of people who show up—in blizzards, in pandemics, at 3 a.m.—to keep shelves stocked and lights on. We’re not invisible. We’re the foundation. Next time you talk to a kid, don’t just ask, “Where are you going to college?” Ask, “What do you want to build?” And if they say, “I’m learning to weld,” or “I’m becoming a plumber,” or “I’m going to drive trucks like my dad,” look them in the eye and say: “This country needs you. We’re counting on you.” Yahoo Mail: Search, Organize, Conquer <https://mail.onelink.me/107872968?pid=nativeplacement&c=US_Acquisition_YMktg_315_SearchOrgConquer_EmailSignature&af_sub1=Acquisition&af_sub2=US_YMktg&af_sub3=&af_sub4=100002039&af_sub5=C01_Email_Static_&af_ios_store_cpp=0c38e4b0-a27e-40f9-a211-f4e2de32ab91&af_android_url=https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.yahoo.mobile.client.android.mail&listing=search_organize_conquer> -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Thatha_Patty" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CABC81ZcWOfM-Wit%2BNZtK-7JWcW%3Drn%2BABYqAq6Jt9_Ye1YdmZYQ%40mail.gmail.com.
