A mural covered the hallway walls. I looked at each image of children playing as I rolled by: kids on the teetertotter, a little boy with his cherub face playing with his labrador, and a girl with braids laughing on the tire swing. All those images had become well-known landmarks on my worn trail when dumping trash cans at my dad’s school.

My sisters and I called it Dad’s school because our dad worked there. He worked as the director of a school for children with disabilities such as autism and other severe behavioral disorders. Along with his typical workday, he volunteered to be the school janitor after work hours. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, he would call up the whole family to participate in the family janitorial business.

My job was to dump the trash in every room. As an energetic 10-year-old boy, the job lacked a little luster, so in an attempt to inject some life into my menial task, I would scoot around the school in Heelys: shoes that had built-in wheels on the heels of the shoe. The entire school layout was rote memory as I breezed down the hallway pushing a 50-gallon dumpster with wheels of its own. Making my rounds in search of all trashcans, I would glide down every hall, round every corner, and enter every classroom rolling on my heels while simultaneously pushing the trash bin in front of me.

The task was simple. Find every trash bin in the building and dump them into the 50-gallon dumpster. Any trash bag with a tear needed to be replaced. Any trash bag with liquid, gum, food or any other substance stained or cemented onto it also had to be replaced.

Before every cleaning session, my dad would corral my siblings and me into a room, brief us on our jobs, and explain what he expected out of us for that day—our game plan and pep talk rolled into one whirlwind speech. On this particular day, my dad specifically instructed me that as I dumped each trash can, I needed to check around and behind each bin to make sure there weren’t any fallen debris or crumpled pieces of paper lying on the floor for someone else to clean up. It was our job to clean, and we were to do the best job possible.

I promptly responded with a “yes, sir” and went to the cleaning closet to gather my supplies. With a roll of extra white trash bags in my front pocket, an extra big black trash bag pulled through my jeans’ side belt loop, and my 50-gallon dumpster, I was ready to rock and roll.

My goal was always to finish as fast as possible. If I could beat my older sister, I could help Mom and Dad mop floors. Mopping was a “big kid” job. My eldest sister and I would always race to be the big kid and pull more weight than the others. As I flew through the classrooms, I would hurriedly dump the trash as quickly as possible. If a piece of gum was stuck to the side of the bag, I would quickly pull the slack of the trash bag, hiding it from sight.

My attempts to cut corners were in vain. My dad would frequently check our work and hold us accountable to his expectations. This time, after seeing me wheel so fast I almost put skid marks on the ground, he went around and checked my work.

In my rush, I did not check around every bin and replace all the dirty bags. Even in my dad’s initial glance, he found large pieces of trash on the floor around a can I had completely overlooked. He was disappointed in my poor performance and had me go through and complete the job I had left undone. He explained to me that a job is not worth doing if it is only half done. He told me that I needed to value doing a good job over how fast I did it. The speed is irrelevant if the task is not completed.

Here is the lesson: When given a job, shoddy performance is unacceptable. Do the best job possible. Ecclesiastes 9:10 says, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might ….” God wants us to learn that only our whole-hearted effort will be accepted. He wants us to use every opportunity to grow in His character. God is a workman, and He finds great fulfillment in what He creates. During creation week, God was able to reflect on all that He had made and said it was very good. He put His all into the task and expects us to imitate His example.

The next time you are assigned a job, roll up your sleeves, lace up your Heelys (because Heelys are next-level footwear) and give it your all. Pay attention to the details. Carry out the directions to the best of your ability. As you do, you’ll prove yourself reliable while you grow in godly character.