Amy Lindner: Following Through on a Lesson in the Impact People Can Have
Between finishing college and starting law school, Amy Lindner spent a year working at an auto repair shop in Waukesha. She says she learned valuable things, beyond how her car works.
One lesson was that every job has dignity and deserves respect. Another was that, in dealing with customers, she saw that “the way we treat each other just makes such an impact.” A third: When she told customers what was done for their cars, why it was needed, and why it cost what they were being charged, she found that “just being clear and kind to people is something we all can do in all of our jobs.”
Those are lessons that serve her well in her current position as president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha County.
In a virtual “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program posted on Marquette Law School’s web site on Wednesday (December 2), Lindner talked not only about her work in auto repair but about how the Milwaukee area as a whole has been affected by – and is responding to – people’s needs in his time of a pandemic.
Last year, I watched as a law student was introduced to a lawyer volunteering at the legal clinic. The lawyer was a white man in his 60s. The student was a woman of color in her 20s, and she was wearing hijab. I happen to know that both people have hearts of gold and come to the legal clinic with a desire to help and to give their time and talents selflessly.