He taught me that any type of honest work is respectable and that a conscientious, honest, and hard-working bus driver or trash collector deserves more respect than a lazy or dishonest doctor or lawyer.
I have tried to apply that principle to every part-time job that I have ever had and I discovered that even menial labor is much more satisfying when you make a conscientious effort and try to do it to the best of your ability. It seems that even simple tasks can be psychologically rewarding when one solves problems and achieves a specific goal, regardless of the particular nature of the work itself. This is something that I learned the hard way after making less than a full effort at a relatively easy job. In some respects, I think I had trouble taking it seriously because I considered the work "beneath" me and unchallenging. Ironically, I did a very bad job at the work that I thought was so unchallenging. Since then, I have made sure to devote myself more conscientiously to any task that I agree to take on and have discovered that the experience helped me understand how right my father was all along.
2b) if your supervisor asked you the question, what motivates you to do your best work? How would you answer this question?
What motivates...
If working in a supermarket (for example) is unfulfilling or even depressing in some respects, I try to remind myself that I am working in that environment to help me achieve a very specific and worthwhile purpose, such as paying for my college tuition and related expenses.
In principle, I try to remember why I am doing any work that I am doing instead of focusing on the task on a minute-by-minute basis. In that regard, the identical work that might be a legitimate reason for despair from a micro perspective or if it represented my future is much less unpleasant or depressing from a macro point-of-view. While I know that it is important to do a good job regardless of the type of work responsibilities involved, I have discovered that it is easier to do that when I can maintain my perspective about why I am doing that type of work in the first place. Therefore, if I were working a job that required me to stock boxes on shelves, I would try to keep in mind that each set of boxes I might stock in a work shift represents a textbook that I will be able to afford to buy for my pursuit of my degree instead of just a box that I have to stock on a shelf.
