The coworkers you have, not the ones you want

Here's the hard one, the center of the whole week. You didn't choose these people. The schedule did, or the hiring manager, or just the luck of which warehouse was hiring the month you needed work. Some of them you'd never spend a minute with by choice. And yet they're your lot — the ones beside you on the line, on the ward, in the cab, behind the counter — eight hours a day, most days of your life.

Marcus, handed an empire's worth of people he didn't pick, gave himself the order that turns endurance into something better: "Adapt thyself to the things with which thy lot has been cast: and the men among whom thou hast received thy portion, love them, but do it truly, sincerely" (Meditations 6.39, Long). Not the colleagues you wish you had. The ones you actually got. And not a fake, gritted-teeth politeness — truly, sincerely, the real thing.

This is the keystone the week is built on. Anyone can be decent to the crew they'd have chosen. The work of justice is being genuinely good to the crew you were dealt, the meddler and the ingrate included. They're your portion. Meet them as if they were.