Take Charge of Your Work Day
There’s always something more to do… are there a couple thank you notes you could stand to write?
I couldn’t wait to start working. I got special permission from my parents at age 14 to get a job working [extremely limited] hours at a mom & pop restaurant called “Snappy Tomato Pizza” as a table busser and dish washer. I couldn’t wait to have my own money so I could buy cosmetics and other toiletries from the MALL instead of the grocery store – I wanted makeup from Clinique, I wanted Biolage shampoo and conditioner from Regis, and this was 1995 so you know I wanted the full lines of Sun-Ripened Raspberry and Cucumber Melon from Bath & Body Works. I’d spent my whole life learning to be “frugal” but by age 14 all I wanted was “the good stuff” - HA!
Then I worked for many years as a waitress throughout my teens and into college, and I learned a ton of life lessons from all those jobs, but what I probably use the most today is knowing there is always something more to do. Let me explain - if we were having a slow afternoon at the restaurant, we’d inevitably be standing around talking or flirting. In modern times, I suppose we would have been on our phones. But when the manager came around the corner and said, “Why aren’t you guys working?” we made the catastrophic mistake of saying, “The restaurant is dead right now… there’s nothing to do.” (You might have also experienced this with your kids when they say “I’m borrrred.”) Let me tell you, the list of things we *could* have been doing turned out to be plenty. First, I lemon-oiled all the wooden molding around the booths in the whole restaurant. Then I was tasked with cleaning the leaves of the fake plants. There is actually a special cleaner for that – who knew?! We could also scour the inside of the microwave, soak the coffee urns, the list never ended. And while most young people will always find a way to be social at work, personally I never made the mistake again of saying there was nothing to do, and to avoid getting in trouble for doing nothing, I even cleaned those plant leaves again – more than once – without being asked.
The point is there’s always something more that can be done. You have to be consistent in your work. Just because you get caught up on your client work or customer orders, you may be thinking of shutting down/checking out early, but you could be getting ahead on something. For me, it’s usually a future blog post. Am I caught up and working ahead on my committee and board commitments? What could I be doing better? Should I touch base with some clients I haven’t heard from in a while with a (now virtual) coffee invitation? Are there a couple thank you notes I could stand to write? Yes, you have to have balance – I’m not saying to get crazy – I wouldn’t have been up at the restaurant dusting silk plant leaves on my day off or staying late in order to do those things, but if it’s during your normal work time and you’re having a slow week, I encourage you not to take advantage or mentally check out to scroll social media. Take charge of that time you’ve already allotted for work anyway. There’s bound to be a day soon where something gets in the way or an emergency pops up, and you’ll thank yourself for being so on top of things.