I often work late at the office after quitting time. I get more work done, more tasks completed, when the phone stops ringing and the office chatter trails off.

No matter where I have worked, I've always known the night cleaning people. When you cross paths with someone night after night - well conversation naturally flows. Everyone, it turns out, has a history, a story, family doing well, and family with troubles.

The other night the guy who cleans the corridors mopped the floors as usual. It was about 10 p.m. He sang while he mopped, filling the corridor with his own brand of music. One of the doors to our office was propped open so the singing wafted its way over to my cubicle. It was a delightful surprise.

Last night the regular cleaning lady was back after a twoweek medical leave. When she got around to the area of my desk, I popped my head up so she would know I was there.

We exchanged pleasantries.

While she dusted and polished we talked. I asked her how she was feeling. From the sound of things her recovery is a slow go. She related how that afternoon her day had changed when she walked past a homeless man in the street.

"He didn't have any shoes on," she said, " so I asked him where his shoes were and he said he didn't have any."

The cleaning lady went on to explain to me that she had been feeling down about many things. "And then, here I am, going to my job and he's there with no shoes." So she gave the man a dollar and promised to bring him shoes the next day.

"It made me feel so much better to be of help to someone," she said.

The cleaning lady has a broad wide smile and talking about the experience made her absolutely beam.

And one thing led to another and suddenly the woman was sharing with me a private matter about a family member and his illness.

I listened, because I think that was what was needed at that moment.

Eventually we concluded our conversation and she bid me goodnight. She wheeled her cart out to the door and I heard it click behind me. I resumed my work. Then I heard the door click open.

And there she was again, the cleaning lady, her head appeared over the cubicle wall.

"I need to tell you," she said, "what a relief it was to share that with you. I've not told anyone else. Just speaking it out loud was so helpful."

It turns out we really do all need each other.

I heard a radio interview of humorist and author Joe Queenan last week. Queenan has written a memoir about his childhood growing up poor in Philadelphia. With a distant mother and an abusive, alcoholic father, Queenan's childhood sounded really tough.

Queenan writes about an uncle by marriage - a smooth guy with a convertible and a sense of style. This uncle would come around on Sundays and take Queenan and his three sisters out for pizza.

"We would drive for miles to this greasy pizza joint," Queenan related, saying we thought the guy was crazy to go so far when great pizza was easily found closer to home.

But with age comes wisdom. And Queenan follows up with a profound observation about the uncle and the pizza and the drive.

To paraphrase Queenan describe the revelation - "in his own way, he was trying to save our lives by giving us something else."

Queenan said it was obvious that he and his sisters were in horrid circumstances. And he recognizes that the uncle, in his own way, was finding a way to help.

Be it after hours, or passing on the sidewalk. or out on Sunday afternoons, it just keeps coming back to the fact - we need each other.