"Learning is not a product of schooling but the lifelong attempt to acquire it." Albert Einstein Physicist & Nobel Laureate
Have you heard about Gac Filipaj? For 19 years, Mr. Filipaj has mopped floors, cleaned toilets and took out trash as a custodian at Columbia University in New York. In May of this year, Mr. Filipaj graduated and earned a college degree with honors. Filipaj left Yugoslavia in 1992 to escape a brutal civil war and came to New York hoping to be able to get work and send money back to his family. The janitorial position at Columbia offered as one of its benefits, free classes to its employees. Mr. Filipaj first attended class to learn english but kept taking more classes hoping to some day earn a diploma. It took Gac Filipj twelve years of balancing classes with a full-time job but he did it.
Each one of us have different life goals but Mr. Filipaj's story is very inspiring and we can take from it the lesson that it takes many small steps to achieve our big goals. We can also see the value in grabbing the learning opportunities that are offered to us. Sure the cost of his education was mostly covered but Mr. Filipaj still had to do the hard work of getting to class each day and cracking the books open himself.
If you look around you there are always opportunities to learn every day. Learning Everyday is a Core Value here at Stathakis. Learning new things makes us feel good about ourselves and helps us remember that we are individuals full of possibilities. Learning new things pushes us forward personally and professionally.
At Stathakis, we want our team members to get everything possible from both their life and their jobs. At Stathakis you are family and we all care about each other. There is a saying in Ubuntu that we help ourselves by helping each other. I want to create as many learning experiences as possible for all of us here at Stathakis. The Ubuntu training is one of these opportunities and I hope that the impact reaches far beyond the workplace.
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