The story is told of a student taking an exam, who had studied hard and knew all the material, so he breezed through the first nine questions. When he got to the last question, however, he was stuck. It read, “What is the first name of the woman who cleans this school?”
He figured it was some kind of joke. He had seen the cleaning lady lots of times around the school. He could even describe her: tall, dark-haired, in her 50s, but he had no idea what her name was.
As he handed his exam in, with the last question still blank, he asked the professor if that question really counted toward their grades.
“Absolutely,” the professor replied. “You’ll meet many people during your careers. All of them are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say ‘hello.’”