Joe Geiser writes:
>The problem is (and I will need to get the flamesuit out, I guess), is that
>MANY people go to work, do what they're told, put in their 8-hours (or pound
>of flesh, whichever comes first), and work for the mere reason of obtaining
>that (pick your timing/frequency) paycheck, and for no other reason. This
>may not apply to you personally and is not directed to any one person - but
>look at yourself and your career... are you really just in it for that
>paycheck, or do you want/need something else?
This is a two-way street: the company also has to foster an environment
where people are treated as intelligent beings. I was particularly lucky
in that the first person I worked for out of college was of the
do-it-right-no-matter-what-I-say type. In fact, I originally worked for
him for two months, after which he fired me when I handed him my two
weeks' notice. A couple of years later, he re-hired me after a chance
meeting at which we both figured that we had over-reacted to what was, in
the end, an editorial dispute about a few sentences in a user manual we
were writing. But in general, his motto was that it's easier to get
forgiveness than permission, and he expected his employees to work the
same way.
On the other hand, I once hired someone as an office manager who had come
to us with one of those suspiciously glowing letters of recommendation.
After all, why should any manager write a glowing letter of
recommendation so they could lose an employee who deserved one? I called
the person who wrote the letter, called around elsewhere to verify the
factual information (her former employer, a finance arm of Sears, was
closing its regional offices), and decided to hire the person. I called
her and offered her the job at a fairly generous salary.
To my surprise, she expressed reservations about taking the job. It
turned out that when someone else in our company had been interviewing
her, she had casually asked when the morning break would be and was told
that there wasn't one. To her, with only her old employer's rules as
experience, this meant that she wasn't allowed to leave her desk from
opening until lunchtime. When I told her that if she wanted to get some
coffee or go to the rest room, she should just do it, there was a long
pause: now it was _her_ turn to be suspicious.
"I guess that would work," she said finally.
Apparently, it was the first time in her 21 years of life that she'd seen
an environment where people didn't have to raise their hands to go to the
bathroom.
There were several more of these cultural adjustments in the next year,
and each time, she had to adjust to the fact that someone valued her for
her ability to make decisions, not her ability to keep the rules. Some of
the adjustments worked both ways: we put her in charge of organizing the
bimonthly local HP 3000 user group meetings that our company was running,
and she did a very good job at that. But after three or four meetings,
she complained that she had to work until 7:30PM on the nights of the
meetings (she worked with the hotel, collected the $5 attendance fee and
so on), and she really should get overtime. I pointed out to her that
when she took part of an afternoon off to look after some detail of her
upcoming wedding, she didn't get "undertime." Again, there was a pause
while the implications of being treated as a thinking being were being
integrated into her world view.
So when Joe writes:
>We (and other employers) want you to bring your brain, your
>ideas, your willingness to learn...
he should keep in mind that there may well be a bunch of people walking
around who are perfectly capable of doing just that, but who have been
trained all their lives to do the opposite. At age 21, our office manager
was young enough not to have been made cynical by her former workplace.
If she'd worked there for 20 years, though, it's very likely that she'd
have become one of the crew that
>...go to work, do what they're told, put in their 8-hours (or
>pound of flesh, whichever comes first), and work for the mere
>reason of obtaining that (pick your timing/frequency) paycheck,
>and for no other reason.
... thereby wasting a perfectly good mind.
-- Bruce
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Bruce Toback Tel: (602) 996-8601| My candle burns at both ends;
OPT, Inc. (800) 858-4507| It will not last the night;
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Phoenix AZ 85028 | It gives a lovely light.
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