Working hard for your wage is to be admired

DIGNITY at work is so important. People need to feel like they’re making a contribution and are valued, and it’s a feeling that goes well beyond pay.

Geoffrey Owens was once a famous actor on the successful, if ill-fated, ‘Cosby Show’ in the 1980s. He played the sniffy Elvin, married to eldest Cosby child, Sondra. The show finished up in 1992 and Owens flitted between minor acting and directing work before being spotted and, in the curious way that some barrel-scraping tabloids relish, ‘outed’, working in a grocery store. His face was splashed across the pages in a bid to either take him down a peg or two (which he clearly didn’t need, or deserve), or portray him, with some delight, as a washed-up, has-been.

He had lived reasonably well off ‘Cosby Show’ re-runs for 26 years, but even they were axed after Bill Cosby’s conviction as a sex offender, and Owens found himself doing what any decent man would, getting whatever job he could to support his family.

“They want to see stories about people who were once great or celebrated, now fallen,” he said of the coverage. He asked what was wrong with working in a shop, restaurant, or indeed, any job where you put in hours and collect a fair wage.

Compared to the disgrace of Cosby himself, Owens’s life may no longer be in the stellar league, but at least it’s honourable.