My new boss gave us a hard rundown today before sending out a nasty email about our call metrics being too low. I couldn't have been happier to be the new kid. As he used extremely professional corporate management tactics to motivate us to do better he gave us advice which I decided to use and misuse.
He's right, exteremely right about the fact that things could be worse then cold calling and there are worse jobs out there from a cost benefit perspective than ours. Coming from one myself I fully understood him. The key in life to being successful isn't understanding good advice, but living good advice. Wisdom and knowledge are just ways of knowing good advice from bad. So I've decided to use it: Every half day before lunch and before I leave for the day I will take a moment to myself to remind myself something along the lines of, "This morning, I didn't have to clean, install or fix a toilet, because that is not my job, and.for this.I am thankful." I will do this exactly 1000 times, because I believe there are 1000 jobs worse than mine. 500 workdays later I will demand and deserve a raise or promotion.
Nobody else in the office will do this. Nobody else I know will do this. We should, but we never do. I started to realize the truth. Most of us are not truly working. We are cashing out on our lotteries. We sell things we don't spend the time to truly understand, we meet deadlines just on time or late. We love leaving the office early for a pint and telling our friends how France has it better with shorter work weeks. I looked at my training material, which up until now has been a pain to read because I too wish to cash in on the lottery. I know work - I have cleaned shit, serviced washrooms, unloaded trucks, worked the night shift, carried 2 jobs, pulled all-nighters, stood serving customers until my foot swelled, unpacked deep freezers, built inventory departments, fought with my manager, fought with my employees, made less money per hour than the price of transportation, quit and been laid off, and that's just a brief history. I know work, very well, but I am guilty of not working. Because I too want to do the least possible for the maximum amount of money. That is not work, that is a lottery. Work is when you build a nest, and the larger a nest you build, the more confortable it will be for your love to lay eggs. Work is when you circle and prospect for hours, waiting, anticipating, for that moment when you pounce! With all of your might and ability you cease the moment and capture your prey. Work is when you want to do more, not less. Work is when you make your own mark on the world as a result of your abundance of action. Work is when you sweat because your body needs to cool down because your heart is beating. Work is when you will your heart to beat faster, everything else is rest. When you work, you don't despair about your job versus someone else's job, because when you work you finalky realize who else is working and who is not. When you work you appreciate everyone else who is working and you approach the only distinction in the character of man. When this happens, you learn to love all the work that is being done for you, everywhere.
Up until now I've done these things in doses, but I haven't woken up wanting to do this any more than I have today. It doesn't just apply to my j-o-b, it applies to everything. I already described how I will use my boss' advice, but importantly is how I plan to misuse it. I stayed late in the office today because I realized that my whole life I have been gobbling down on information and chewing on inlt the way I chew on entertainment. I let it come to me and whatever lands in my mouth and tastes like important logic I swallow it. Everything else; crumbs on my face. But I haven't worked for knowledge for so long. It's been so long since I set out with an agenda to find out those things I've been curious about and pained myself to understand them so deeply that they become a working part of me. So I can use them, like energy, and instead of sitting here fat with knowledge, I can live a robust life of action. I put out an action plan of everything I need to know and complete to near perfection for 2013. For the next year I have very little time for entertainment - my ankles are killing me, I can't afford to put on any more weight.
No comments:
Post a Comment