Cogs in the Machine

July 1st  (so, a month ago) was National Registrars Day.  I had no idea that it was National Registrars Day.  I'm not entirely sure if our registrar knew that it was National Registrars Day, and even if they did, I'm not sure they would have told us - perhaps a bit too much like telling folks it's your birthday in hopes that they bring you cake or throw you a party?  I'm not sure what we would have done or said, anyway.  "Hi!  I know we keep you in a broom closet for 99% of the time and only remember that you're there when we need something, usually last minute... but, uh, thanks!  Here's a cupcake!  See you next year!"

My facility is one that goes all in on National Zookeeper Week - parties and games and prizes and lots of free food - while other members of the staff kind of look on awkwardly from the sidelines.  Zookeepers are very important - in many ways they're the lifeblood of the zoo, the frontline for animal welfare.  But the longer I spend at the zoo, the more I come to appreciate the other people who are there who quietly keep the zoo running.  

People talk a lot about the devotion of the keepers, and they truly are devoted.  But there's also the maintenance guys who come in at midnight or during a storm (or a storm at midnight) to fix a generator that goes down or some similar emergency.  The keepers also get a fair bit of sympathy for not getting paid a lot and the sacrifices they make as a result.  Dear reader, that also applies to everyone else at the zoo...

A few months ago, I did a series of posts detailing the jobs of the various people who go into making the zoo operate.  Some of them have very public facing jobs, and their contributions to the zoo are readily, physically obvious - we can all appreciate a beautiful, well-landscaped planting bed that the horticulture teams puts in and admire how it contributes to the zoo.  Others are less visible, like the life support technicians - you don't think about them or notice them because they are doing their job.  If they were ever to stop... well, we'd notice pretty fast.  Especially anyone involved in keeping fish.

It takes a village to run a zoo.  I often wish that we'd take at least a little of the energy that we put into lionizing (hee hee) the zookeepers and shine some light on the other staff.  Every staff member is a cog in the (occasionally well-oiled) machine that is the zoo, and everyone is essential to keeping it running.