Company Blog

Taking one for the team?

by Adam Zack — December 4, 2019

We win as a team and we lose as a team.

Sunday I was putting up the Christmas lights at our house. There’s a particularly high apex over the garage that I really have to stretch to get the string of lights to. My ladder is 8’, and I am 6’ 1”, so when standing on the top rung of the ladder and stretching my arm up with the light string makes it about 14-15 feet off the ground. It’s fairly precarious, but I’m not scared of heights, so no big deal. Suddenly the ladder shifted and slipped, and I knew I had to move quickly or I would fall, grabbing the clay drain pipe that extends from the house should have helped, however it was not a clay pipe at all, just a styrofoam decorative piece painted to look like clay that broke off in my hand. I moved down a couple steps as I started to fall and was able to avoid the trees below, escaping without injury.

It made me think about how, in moments of having to make a split second decision I would react to danger around me when others might be affected. We all talk about taking one “for the team”, and the ultimate example of that was by a Marine in WWII named John D. New from Mobile, Alabama. During the intense fighting against the Japanese on the island of Peleliu, Private New threw himself on a Japanese hand grenade, sacrificing his life but saving the lives of two comrades. I don’t think I would be brave enough to react that unselfishly. Fortunately, I won’t have to, but it does give me thought during everyday situations that occur that our first instinct should not be self-preservation, but the welfare of our comrades – our co-workers, family and friends. Our business is not a one man sport like tennis or golf. We win as a team and we lose as a team.