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Whether you like it or not, you will spend a majority of your life at work. The attitude you approach this work with determines whether you will enjoy your job or hate waking up and going to work. Terry Toussaint of Fort Valley, Georgia, is a sanitation worker who loves his job. His happiness is not determined by his paycheck or job title but by the mind-set he carries with him every day. His story is humbling and one we can all learn from. He is a listener to my radio show.
He calls himself the “proud sanitation worker.”
While Terry Toussaint’s official title is “supervisor of the Fort Valley Sanitation Department,” he prefers the shorter, more direct term. He is not ashamed of his work or the stereotypes that go along with it.
“I’ve never heard a sanitation worker say ‘I’m a proud sanitation worker,’ but I am. I really am,” said Toussaint.
The title is a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. On March 18, 1968, King spoke to a crowd of street sweepers in Memphis, Tennessee. He told them, “If it falls your lot to be a street sweeper, sweep streets like Michelangelo painted pictures, like Shakespeare wrote poetry, like Beethoven composed music; sweep streets so well that all the host of Heaven and earth will have to pause and say, ‘Here lived a great street sweeper, who swept his job well.’”
King’s earth-moving words spoke to a generation of Americans in need of direction and guidance. The aftershock of his wisdom is still felt today, even in the small rural town of Fort Valley, Georgia, where Toussaint oversees the city’s sanitation department. For a town of roughly eight thousand people, Toussaint is in charge of keeping the town clean, whether it’s clearing fallen trees, road-kill, or garbage.
“It’s all about cleanliness. We service every aspect, be it businesses, schools, or whatever. It’s just a sense of pride in keeping that flow going, keeping the trash moving. I pride myself in my job, I like my job,” Toussaint said.
In fact, Toussaint likes his job so much he hasn’t missed a day of work in years. “It’s all part of my work ethic,” Toussaint explained.
Growing up in Florida, Toussaint had every reason not to adhere to a strict work ethic. “I haven’t seen my dad since sixth grade. I had to look around at the positive men or positive role models, not only in my family but that were around me all the time.”
These role models manifested themselves in the form of Toussaint’s uncles, his mother, his grandmother, and later the U.S. Army. After his service in the military, Toussaint landed in Miami and found a job as an operator for Bell South.
In 2002, Toussaint’s life came to a screeching halt. While driving his SUV, another car cut him off, forcing his vehicle into a death spiral, rolling twice across the highway and finally landing on its back with the wheels in the air. Miraculously, Toussaint kicked out the door and walked out of the wreck without a scratch.
Afterward his beloved grandmother called him and said, “Well, this goes to show you that God is not ready for you yet; you still have some work to do.”
Two months later, Toussaint’s grandmother passed away.
Toussaint has never forgotten her words. “I feed off of that every day. The work ethic and the spirit, it’s all rolled up into one.”
After the accident, his outlook on life changed dramatically. “I try to keep a positive spirit and a positive attitude toward life because there’s so much bad stuff going on in the world,” he said.
“I’m vertical and breathing,” he joked. “Whatever happens after that is icing on the cake.”
With a newfound lease on life, Toussaint went back to work. After several years of hard work and perfect attendance, there was an opportunity for promotion at Bell South. Despite his best efforts, Toussaint failed to land the job and soon after moved to Georgia, where he landed a job as a supervisor of the streets department in Fort Valley.
Initially, Toussaint cleaned gutters and fixed potholes and curbs. Some might call it a demotion, but he calls it “hitting the ground running.” After eight months, the director saw the potential in Toussaint and promoted him to supervisor of the sanitation department.
“There are a lot of people out here like myself—who may not have credentials on paper but are positive people who have good spirits and mean well—that folks don’t even know about,” Toussaint said.
April 20, 2010, as Toussaint was driving his city truck, he noticed a sheriff deputy’s car stopped several feet in front of a four-way intersection. As he drove closer, he noticed a man in the back of the police car, kicking his way out and then escaping across the highway.
Toussaint jumped out of his car and rushed up to the sheriff. “Officer, do you need help?”
“Yes,” said the officer, who was not fast enough to catch the escaping convict. Toussaint took off running. Two or three blocks down the street he lost the man in a wooded section. That’s where his military training kicked in—he stopped and listened. It was the height of summer, and Toussaint could hear branches cracking and leaves rustling. Seconds passed and he heard the convict start to move again.
“I caught him and held him down to the ground. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911,” Toussaint said. With one hand on his phone and the other on the back of the inmate, he restrained his prisoner until the police arrived.
To top off his story, Toussaint added, “To this day, no one has acknowledged what I did.” Not the police, not the local news, and not even the sheriff.
But don’t call him a hero; it’s part of his duty, he said. “If it were to happen tomorrow, I would do it again. I feel like we are all city employees and whether it’s law enforcement or not, [or] fire department, I feel that it was my civic duty to intervene and help this law enforcement officer capture this inmate.”
For Toussaint, it’s all part of the day’s job. At fifty years old, he starts every day at 4:45 a.m. and never misses a day of work. He makes every day count. Toussaint lives out the words of Martin Luther King Jr.
“I’ll always be the best that I can be at [whatever job I have],” Toussaint boasted. His attitude, not his job or status, defines who he is as a man. He describes himself as “financially strapped and morally rich.”
For the proud sanitation worker of Fort Valley, Georgia, work is more than a paycheck, more than a means to an end. It’s a chance to appreciate life and what he’s been given. Whatever his calling might be, he takes pride in his work and does it to the best of his ability. One day the world will look back at Fort Valley, Georgia, and say, “Here lived a great sanitation worker, who did his job well.”
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“You keep swinging at that ball and you know that eventually you’re going to hit it. And that’s the attitude that I have,” Toussaint said. “A lot of folks strike out and give up and walk to the dugout with their heads down. But you know what, the guy who’s going to make it is the guy who goes back up to the plate with that vigor and says, ‘I’m going to hit that ball this time,’ no matter how many strikes you might get. Always stay positive because you know what, that next pitch is the one that you might knock out of the ball park.
“I hit it out of the park every day that I get up.”