7 ways to do "just enough" to get by...
Or, How NOT to Succeed in Business because you DIDN'T Really Try
Is “success” a four-letter word? Or has the PATH to success — and the definition of success — simply changed with the times?
Recently, upon asking random 8th-grade students at a local career fair about what they hoped to achieve, career-wise, I received the following answers sprinkled in among the litany of semi-idealistic (surgeon/lawyer/marine biologist) and fairly practical (law enforcement/welder/nail technician) responses:
NFL/NBA player
Gamer
Influencer
These last responses say a lot about this generation of screen-saturated youth; they consider fame itself to be a viable career goal. And they are not wrong. The professional athlete status is still widely desired by many but only achieved by only a fraction of a fraction of people anywhere, thanks to the time-tested but slowly dying concept of “merit-based promotion.”
The same rigorous requirements were expected to “become famous” through acting or modeling or performance art not that long ago, but nowadays you can reach fame of this variety simply by getting other people to spend their lives watching you live life in front of a screen, courtesy of easy access to the internet at all hours of the day. Cha-ching! No expert skill required! These potentially lucrative “careers” that actually reveal latent narcissism instead of any useful contribution to society are sadly accessible via social media for kids too young to drive themselves to the bank to cash their checks. (Bank? Checks? What are those things? Money is all digital, isn’t it? See: Zelle, Venmo, CashApp, etc.)
Kinda warms the heart, doesn’t it?
Basically it seems like more and more kids are refusing to spend time doing anything they don’t LOVE. Math? Please. Read a classic novel? Find the movie. (If they haven’t made a movie, it can’t be very good in the first place, right?) Work a fast food job? Only if it pays $15/hour. Or more.
Where exactly are they learning the discipline to do the hard stuff, the not-as-exciting stuff, the stuff that tends to be the foundation of life skills and tangible accomplishments? With immediate gratification culture so pervasive in today’s digital world, what kind of work ethic is being passed down?
Here is a sampling of what constitutes Work Ethic in 2023 — Seven “Not-Fireable-Offenses” guaranteed to keep you at or near ground level on the ladder of success:
Leave at 5 pm on the dot (Clock Watcher)
You arrive at 9am sharp and immediately retreat to the bathroom to do your makeup — that thirty minute commute really cuts into your sleep, and why should YOU lose sleep just because your employer INSISTS on having you work in-person and not remotely? This also means that there is NO chance that a project will keep you working past your scheduled time. How will you ever have a social life otherwise?
Remain seated at business expos
It’s already bad enough that you have to tote all the signage and swag to decorate a booth — your boss also expects you to talk to people ALL DAY. When exactly does that leave time for checking your social media? You definitely insist on sitting down so that your pricey Louboutins won’t get stretched out from your swelling feet, and it makes you look busy and important if you keep your eyes glued to your screen instead of greeting passersby with a friendly smile.
Neglect to identify yourself/the company when you answer a call
If your phone rings, it’s obvious who the caller is trying to reach, right? Why should you have to answer with a smile and your name, let alone the company name? You have every right to expect that the caller will know who you are since THEY called YOU.
Neglect to create an outgoing voicemail message that identifies you and your professional role
I mean, who has time to do that? And what difference does it make? There is a default message already installed…that should be good enough. If the caller dialed the correct number, they already know who you are — and if they dialed a wrong number, they should figure it out and hang up!
Neglect to create a thorough email signature block with name, title, address, phone — at the very least
Hey, if you are emailing someone, they have your email address. What more do they need? If they INSIST on calling you, they can probably find the number on the company website. Not that you really want to be bothered by having to talk with anyone on the PHONE. You don’t have to make small talk in an email….
Wear shorts and flip-flops in the airport when traveling on a business trip
Dude, you are so right — you are not at the office, so why should you have to represent the company in some stuffy khakis and a button-down? You should be comfortable while you get paid to lounge around the aiport and charge the company for your lunch and drinks and car service to the four-star hotel suite. And don’t worry about brushing up on the vendors you are traveling to meet or perfecting the presentation you are scheduled to give; in-flight movies are FREE!
Toss the trash from your lunch in the garbage but leave the wrapper from someone else’s snack on the table for someone else to handle
You deserve a medal for cleaning up after yourself; technically you aren’t the custodian, so YOU’RE WELCOME! But ewww…picking up a piece of cellophane that some other slob left on a table? Let them pick up their own mess…you’d probably need a pair of gloves to do that, anyway, these days. What with germs and all. I mean, RIGHT? Basically as long as you are doing your job, you are fulfilling your duty to the company — let someone else who is getting paid for it do the grunt work like wiping down the kitchen, greeting a visitor at the door, sweeping a spill off the floor, and changing the toner in the copier. It’s only fair!
Combine these fine habits with the trend of making lateral moves from company to company for a fifty-cent per hour pay bump — frequently stacking up entries on a resume like items on a Thanksgiving grocery list — and we have to wonder what our cities and towns will look like in another twenty years.
As we get older, we all realize that the best things tend to take TIME to become great; the effort and the investment and the loyalty of committing to something — a project, a marriage, and yes, an employer — can result in an outcome far longer-lasting and more satisfying than getting 10,000 likes in one day for a single post on Instagram. With social media, you are only as good as your last post and can be canceled in a heartbeat for a message sent out in haste. With long-standing commitments, you can shelter yourself in the entirety of your relationship when an occasional misstep occurs.
I believe we should strive to do more than “just enough” — we should work towards developing skills and relationships that leave the larger world a little bit better and make our personal worlds A LOT better.