Give a little extra...
Use building blocks to become a cornerstone at work.
It's called "value added" in the marketing world but in the working world it is being the "valuable additive." What that means is no matter what job you have, do a little extra, more than what is required, grease the wheel to make it stop squeaking without being asked. Even more importantly don't be the squeaky wheel that always needs to be oiled to get you to do the basic job. Do quality work. Be friendly and amiable to everyone, which doesn't mean you have to like them or be overly nice, people see right through that. Sometimes you won't feel like it and have bad days. If you are consistently congenial, then when occasionally grumpy or not having a good day, it is the exception and not the rule. When you make a mistake, own up to it, fix it and learn from it, apologizing goes a long way.
There is nothing wrong with being helpful to your supervisor, if they want it or you see they need someone to lend a hand. Be respectful to them, even if sometimes they don't always return the favor, you might be surprised to find that one day they will in an unexpected way. It's not being a bootlicker but common decency, at the same time don't be an apple-polisher either. It's not hard to be a regular person who offers an element of value without working too hard at it. When you offer something additional to what is required you're becoming a cornerstone of the place where you work. A cornerstone is part of the foundation that makes you vital to the operation of your workplace and difficult to replace in tangible and intangible ways.
The reasons are twofold. The first is it will improve your job satisfaction, no matter how ordinary that job might seem to the larger world, work will be a challenge not a chore. The second is it will also make you more beneficial to your boss and employer in a way they may not quite fully understand until something happens you can resolve. They're likely to realize that you're offering something that others don't and that alone is enough to keep you. If the time should come when choices have to be made regarding who stays and who goes, you will be one of those that stay and the person who does the minimum required, squeaks a lot and when given an inch takes a mile, will be gone.
In this world of high unemployment, companies need people who not only can do the work but also add to that work. There are two skills involved in any type of employment: the skills of doing the actual work itself and more, plus the skills of getting along with other people. In that sense, no matter your line of work, everyone is in customer service.
"No employer ever wants to see an employee with his hands in his pockets." Mike's father.
Mike, who blogs at rock and confusion and video blogs on his YouTube 7anby channel, in this video offers a great perspective on this topic. His thoughts were inspiration for this blog.
Hassle-Free Work
3/18/11
3/17/11
You Can Quote Me On That
Misplaced loyalty...
If you work for any company, no matter the size, don't love the company because it won't love you back, if you do your loyalty is displaced. Your ultimate responsibility is yourself, family and friends. Work is a source of income and even though it can be rewarding it is not a support network. There are few exclusions to this, perhaps a small family owned business is an exception to this rule.
Always keep in mind you work for a business where the main intent is to make a profit. This doesn't mean that there aren't some companies who do really attempt to keep their employees satisfied, pay a decent wage, try to do the right thing by those that produce for them. It's a fact of free enterprise though that when times are tough, difficult choices sometimes have to be made. The owners, operators, stakeholders have to make decisions based on their fiduciary duty to the company and not to the people who work there.
To preserve your integrity and work ethic you should always do a good job but thinking of yourself as a free-agent, allows you to also maintain your dignity and independence as a person. You can respect the company you work for but that doesn't mean they have an obligation to not make a change in your employment.
If you work for any company, no matter the size, don't love the company because it won't love you back, if you do your loyalty is displaced. Your ultimate responsibility is yourself, family and friends. Work is a source of income and even though it can be rewarding it is not a support network. There are few exclusions to this, perhaps a small family owned business is an exception to this rule.
Always keep in mind you work for a business where the main intent is to make a profit. This doesn't mean that there aren't some companies who do really attempt to keep their employees satisfied, pay a decent wage, try to do the right thing by those that produce for them. It's a fact of free enterprise though that when times are tough, difficult choices sometimes have to be made. The owners, operators, stakeholders have to make decisions based on their fiduciary duty to the company and not to the people who work there.
To preserve your integrity and work ethic you should always do a good job but thinking of yourself as a free-agent, allows you to also maintain your dignity and independence as a person. You can respect the company you work for but that doesn't mean they have an obligation to not make a change in your employment.
3/16/11
Thinking Out Loud
Working for yourself...
Even if you have an employer who doesn't appreciate you.
There are careers, jobs, employment and being an entrepreneur with your own business. Not everyone is able to have their own business and run it themselves, some people have careers, but most people have jobs and are employed.
Careers and jobs can be enjoyable and fun and others can simply be employment. With employment your employer only cares that you show up, do what you're told and discourages any independent thinking or initiative. Those jobs are harder when there are also difficult people to deal with daily. I held one once for well over a decade during a previous bad economic era, as soon as I was able, I left it. While doing that job though, I learned as much as I could even though my employer discouraged it, as well as during my time off I earned formal education and did things I enjoyed doing. Most importantly I figured out how to handle being around difficult people.
During this challenging economic period, many people are enduring careers and jobs they would like to get out of but aren't able to due to current conditions. If that is the case, then the best option is challenging yourself to learn as much as you can from that job, which may not necessarily be the skills of the job itself, but other self-development accomplishments such as dealing and coping with problematic people. Additionally also taking the time to learn something else outside of that work to improve your chances for better opportunities in the future. It is difficult, I know. I never thought my work era between 1978 and 1983 would ever end in anything positive. In 1993, ten years after I had left, I had the perspective to look back and appreciate how much the extracurricular work I had done decades prior had paid off. I also recognized that the coping skills and ability to deal with unpleasant people went a long way and were lessons for life.
Coping mechanisms are the key to the door to get what you want.
Right now I have a job that has potential to become a career. I like what I do very much and the people I work with, the one exception is a difficult manager. There's really no other way to state it: she's cranky, irritable, hypercritical and never gives praise; she finds everything that is wrong and nothing that is right. I don't believe she's a mean person, she does have good qualities and for brief periods of time she can be somewhat pleasant. My peers feel the same way as I do about her, therefore I know it's not a personal thing with me.
There are days when it is hard for me to take, especially since I do like the work itself, what I'm learning from it and the potential for growth. It's an exercise in not only learning a new line of work but also something else just as important, recalling how to deal with difficult people. The first lesson I'm still re-learning is not taking it too personally, which is tough. The second is realizing that the other person is probably doing the best they can to cope under the circumstances they're dealing with in life. For the person I'm referring to, the problem is the same as it usually is for other difficult people, their complex, bewildering, problematic behavior is rooted in their own insecurity and doubts about themselves.
The schooling here is coping and overcoming to gain some peace within myself to not let this person bother me and interfere with where I want to go. In order to do that I have to reach back in time and recall skills that I haven't had to use in quite awhile. It's a work in progress but the past has also taught me that in the long term, it is worthwhile and to my advantage. The other person I can do nothing about, they will have to live with themselves, I can only deal with how I control myself within the circumstances.
Even if you have an employer who doesn't appreciate you.
There are careers, jobs, employment and being an entrepreneur with your own business. Not everyone is able to have their own business and run it themselves, some people have careers, but most people have jobs and are employed.
Careers and jobs can be enjoyable and fun and others can simply be employment. With employment your employer only cares that you show up, do what you're told and discourages any independent thinking or initiative. Those jobs are harder when there are also difficult people to deal with daily. I held one once for well over a decade during a previous bad economic era, as soon as I was able, I left it. While doing that job though, I learned as much as I could even though my employer discouraged it, as well as during my time off I earned formal education and did things I enjoyed doing. Most importantly I figured out how to handle being around difficult people.
During this challenging economic period, many people are enduring careers and jobs they would like to get out of but aren't able to due to current conditions. If that is the case, then the best option is challenging yourself to learn as much as you can from that job, which may not necessarily be the skills of the job itself, but other self-development accomplishments such as dealing and coping with problematic people. Additionally also taking the time to learn something else outside of that work to improve your chances for better opportunities in the future. It is difficult, I know. I never thought my work era between 1978 and 1983 would ever end in anything positive. In 1993, ten years after I had left, I had the perspective to look back and appreciate how much the extracurricular work I had done decades prior had paid off. I also recognized that the coping skills and ability to deal with unpleasant people went a long way and were lessons for life.
Coping mechanisms are the key to the door to get what you want.
Right now I have a job that has potential to become a career. I like what I do very much and the people I work with, the one exception is a difficult manager. There's really no other way to state it: she's cranky, irritable, hypercritical and never gives praise; she finds everything that is wrong and nothing that is right. I don't believe she's a mean person, she does have good qualities and for brief periods of time she can be somewhat pleasant. My peers feel the same way as I do about her, therefore I know it's not a personal thing with me.
There are days when it is hard for me to take, especially since I do like the work itself, what I'm learning from it and the potential for growth. It's an exercise in not only learning a new line of work but also something else just as important, recalling how to deal with difficult people. The first lesson I'm still re-learning is not taking it too personally, which is tough. The second is realizing that the other person is probably doing the best they can to cope under the circumstances they're dealing with in life. For the person I'm referring to, the problem is the same as it usually is for other difficult people, their complex, bewildering, problematic behavior is rooted in their own insecurity and doubts about themselves.
The schooling here is coping and overcoming to gain some peace within myself to not let this person bother me and interfere with where I want to go. In order to do that I have to reach back in time and recall skills that I haven't had to use in quite awhile. It's a work in progress but the past has also taught me that in the long term, it is worthwhile and to my advantage. The other person I can do nothing about, they will have to live with themselves, I can only deal with how I control myself within the circumstances.
3/15/11
3/14/11
Geography of the Mind
Just when you thought...
Nothing else could happen, something does and we all know about it immediately.
For a moment in time, the year 2010 seemed to give us and the world a brief respite. It felt as if, although thinking people realized it wouldn't take hold, we may not be in a fully sustainable economic recovery but at least there was a pause or suspension of things getting worse. We were lulled by overkill of good news of small magnitude. The wishful hope I think most of us had was that the economic crisis would not get too much worse and we could stabilize as a people and begin the laborious task of slowly rebuilding. It seems though the dawn of 2011 has brought home to society the realization that we are not going to get out of this universe changing crackup so easily. On the economic front in the United States, a large segment of Americans now recognize that we are indeed in a genuine depression. We'll likely skip spring and head straight into long, hot summer afternoons followed by cold fall and winter nights.
We've been recently jolted by big, bad news. Another shoe may drop. Anything can happen. Things happen in threes. We will all know about it at the same time.
There are uprisings all across the Middle East, which at a minimum threatens our oil supplies and is bound to cause global economic problems. Even larger than that, the turbulence of the Jasmine Revolution, is far from over and more is to come. There is now the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, taking a terrible toll on the people of that country. Worse, nuclear meltdown is a very real possibility, bringing to the people of Japan the horror of revisiting a different nuclear disaster reminiscent of the Second World War. Japan is the third largest economy in the world and this event will have a financial effect on all of us.
What is next? One of the Four Horsemen? Conquest, War, Famine or Death? We will know within minutes if a White, Red, Black or Pale horse arrives.
Any number of things could bring another cataclysmic event to us soon. The debt of the European nations and the US government is one. The Currency Crisis could suddenly make itself obvious as the insolvency of governments reveals itself. Is a widespread incurable global disease possible in this day and age? A technological meltdown? Food shortages everywhere, including first world nations?
No one knows. Nothing could happen since so much already has. The world is random. Everyone will be aware of it instantly.
In the long course of history, Classical Ancient, Middle Ages and Modern, humans have suffered and thrived simultaneously but in the first two periods, news and knowledge was local and took a long time to spread. In the Modern era globalization began and technological progress, for better or worse, advanced and is omnipresent in our lives. The breadth of communications that span the globe is a critical component of input into our minds with a subliminal effect. The social web is the epitome of oversharing personal thought.
This is the period of Too Much Information. Media Saturation. Information Overload. Whatever you prefer to call it, I maintain one of our highest priorities should be managing the flow of current material that enters into our brains. We may be people of the latest Modern age but I'm not sure that as mortal souls most of us have caught up with the rapidity of the advances science and technology have made. Especially those of the last thirty years.
I believe the effects of instant connections have altered the psychology of the larger population, affecting the economic crisis and the way people perceive and react to it.
Mass marketing of mass communications isn't necessarily good for the masses. It's unlikely that progression of widespread communications is going to slow down. The effect of globalization, technological innovations and communication has been one of the major reasons why the impact of this economic depression is different. Prior to the 1929 stock market crash and the Great Depression of the thirties, drastic economic downturns were referred to as Panics. Just a Panics came to be called Recessions and Depressions, the nomenclature of economic crisis has changed to Disruption, due to instant messaging. This is not only an economic depression and change of a way of life but also a disruption of great magnitude because we are at a zenith of communications. The progression from local news and knowledge to global information is made complete. All that remains is improving the tools that transmit it.
Know your own mind. Guard and protect it as securely as you would your body. Consider what you feed into your head as much as you consider what you should eat.
Understanding that this economic disruption is not only a life-altering physical endurance contest, it also is a groupthink mental challenge, is pivotal to understanding how to survive relatively intact. Stress is a demanding thing, it eats you up, that is why it is important to learn how to cope with it and prevent it from distracting you as much as possible. Learn it, live it, to do more than survive it, but thrive in it.
3/13/11
Arizona Landscape
Memorial to Arizona Confederate Troops...
A nation that forgets its past has no future.
photo by Zeff Nelson
A nation that forgets its past has no future.
3/12/11
Music Break: Aaron Lewis
Country Boy...
with George Jones, Charlie Daniels, Chris Young
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsQzw_Ax8Cw&feature=channel_video_title
with George Jones, Charlie Daniels, Chris Young
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsQzw_Ax8Cw&feature=channel_video_title
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