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A tradução do título é O Valor e a Importância do Trabalho Braçal. Outra palavra para expressar "trabalho braçal ou físico" é TOIL, em contraste com o tão louvado e sempre mais bem remunerado "trabalho intelectual".

Quando meu pai, Heinz, minha mãe, Ayda, e minha irmã, Mônica, emigraram para os EEUU em 1965 (não estavam fugindo da Revolução de 31 de março de 1965, que impediu a transformação do Brasil em um simples exclave soviético na America do Sul) ao chegarem à Califórnia, admiraram-se muito do valor dado ao trabalho braçal, exatamente o tipo de trabalho sempre desvalorizado do lado de baixo do equador.

Pois a história que tenho para lhes contar hoje é uma ode ao trabalho braçal.

An Austrian legend says that in a certain village there was a simple and hard working man who was employed by the Town Council to look after the ponds, rivulets, and streams that provided water to the town´s water reservoir.

This simple man, with silent regularity, supervised the hills, took leaves and dry branches away, and cleaned the lime (calcium oxide) that could contaminate the flow of the fresh water.

Nobody observed the long hours he used to spend walking around the hills, or the efforts he had to make to take all the existing litter (litter means garbage) away.

Slowly, the small village started to attract tourists. Gracious swans started to swim in the crystal waters.

Water wheels from neighboring companies started to work day and night.

Plantations were naturally watered; the view from the restaurants was of an extraordinary beauty.

Years passed by. One day, as they used to do every semester, the Town Council (equivalent to Câmara Municipal) held a meeting.

One of the members of the Council looked at the fountain keeper´s salary.

He immediately alerted the others and made a long speech about how much the town had spent in paying the small salary of that old man for years.

What for? What did he actually do? He was a strange kind of forest ranger, with no utility at all.

His speech convinced everybody. Therefore, the keeper was dismissed.

On the following weeks, nothing new happened. However, when autumn arrived, the trees started to lose their leaves.

Small branches started to fall into the ponds created by the springs.

One afternoon, somebody noticed yellowish color in the ponds. A couple of weeks later, the water became completely dark.

One more week and a thin layer of silt (fine particles of sand and other earthy matter, which are carried and deposited by water) covered the entire surface along the ponds´ shores.

A bad smell started to be felt. The swans emigrated. The water wheels started to go around very slowly, and then eventually (eventually não significa "eventualmente". O seu significado é no futuro, mais tarde) stopped.

Tourists abandoned the place. Sickness arrived at the village. The Town Council gathered again and realized the big mistake they had made. Immediately, they employed the fountain keeper again. Some weeks later, the waters of the river started to get clear. The water wheels started to work once more. The swans (cisnes) came back, and life took its course again.

Like the small village´s Council, many of us do not consider some people´s work important.

Some people work so that bread arrives at our tables; there are the ones who refill the supermarket shelves.

Others keep the corridors of schools and hospitals clean.

There are people who sweep the streets, who collect the garbage, drive buses, and open gates of companies.

Without these people´s work, our work would not happen, or maybe life would not be possible.

The world is like a huge company, where each of us has a specific and indispensable job.

If somebody does not perform his or her job, others will notice that because we depend on each other to live, to work, and to be happy!

Let us think about it!

Inspired on a tale by Charles R. Swindoll.

Have a nice weekend.

Roberto Henry Ebelt é professor, escritor, produz uma coluna semanal para o Jornal do Comércio de Porto Alegre deste 2001 e é diretor do curso HENRY'S BUSINESS ENGLISH desde 1971.

Seu mais recente livro, O QUE VOCÊ DEVE SABER ANTES DE ESTUDAR INGLÊS, pode ser encontrado nas livrarias Disal, Cultura e SBS ou à rua Hoffmann, 728 em Porto Alegre.

E-mail: roberto@henrys.com.br
Fone (51) 3222-3144
www.henrys.com.br