Initiative

I just had a flash-back to my teaching days.  I had a student on a royal rip about her cheap employer. She had worked there for years and hadn’t gotten a promotion. She then went and spoke to her supervisor about her situation.  It seems a couple of days later he approached her with some added work to do that was clearly above her pay grade.  Well, she wasn’t going to get tricked like that!  Obviously, she refused to do the work.  Anyway she was thinking about getting a different job  because no one has spoken to her about the promotion.

Even though I figured she was a lost cause, I did see an opportunity for a teaching moment for the class.  I spoke to the class about job enrichment.   I made the mistake of suggesting that sometimes an employee will be given added work to see if they can handle an extra  work load or more complex task.  Well, that was the wrong thing to say.  Clearly her employer tried to trick her out of the promotion.  According to her, he should have told her the work was connected to the promotion. She did not see where her figuring it out on her own might demonstrate a higher level of thought. Even more interesting is that maybe 1/3 of the class agreed with her….yes, the youngest 1/3.

Was she still able to handle the added workload, or was it too overwhelming for her now?

Hi  Flora,

In class, she said she had refused to do any added work unless she was paid more.   Frankly, she had a pretty tolerant supervisor.  In some circles, her behavior is known as insubordination. It would have resulted in some higher level of disciplinary action.

I have no follow up on her. The only thing I remember about her is the “speech” she gave to the class.  

Every promotion I have received (and there have been many over my career including earlier this year) lagged behind me actually doing the extra work. This year I even had to write my new job description because my job has morphed so much from when I started. Hah

If you have a good boss and you're a good worker, it's easy to ask for a promotion.  I always go prepared with the support for why i think i deserve one, and end with, if you disagree, please let me know what you would like to see from me to receive what I'm asking for. It's the same for asking for a raise.

If you have a shitty boss and/ or work for a shitty company, then focus on updating your resume.  But you still want to put extra work in so you can document all that stuff and use it to leverage a better position.

So I agree, John. It's not impossible to get a job without showing you can do it, but it's definitely easier if you're willing to show initiative.

John F Dean wrote:...hadn’t gotten a promotion. She then went and spoke to her supervisor about her situation.

It seems a couple of days later he approached her with some added work to do that was clearly above her pay grade.

This reminds me of the game Tribonds, in which you're given three seemingly unrelated words which are, in fact, related.

I saw a sign today which read "Opportunities don't happen, they're made." While I don't think that is true 100% of the time, or universally applicable, there is something to it. Yay for your student's initiative to speak to her superiors - it sounds as though she got something started. Bummer that the momentum fizzled. There's a huge difference between the thoughts, "I'm being taken advantage of. How dare you!" versus "Oh, wow - I'm getting exactly what I asked for! Let's do this thing!"

Hopefully it was a step on the learning curve, and later on she got to repeat the lesson and maybe react to it differently, with different results.

This made me think - thanks!

Hi Sonja,

At least every few years,  and usually more often, I would ask my employees to track their work day. .  This was done through them tracking their day in 15 minute increments for several days. Jobs evolve …and good employees meet those challenges.   It is rare for an employee’s job description to actually match their job after they have been around for a while. Of course, I would verify the accuracy of each list, but job descriptions would be changed. Job titles would be changed. And, promotions would happen.   If it became clear that the person had been working above their pay grade for an extended period, I felt a bonus was in order.  I enjoyed calling an employee into my office and handing them an unexpected check for $1000.00.

I get the sense that career paths work differently from industry to industry. Promotions are almost always tied to more than one factor but in some industries the leading factor is simply tenure/seniority. In some jobs it is even stated explicitly: "You will be paid this much your first year, then you get an X% raise each subsequent year you stay with us" (usually with a common-sense provision like "so long as you don't totally screw up all the time, cause problems, be habitually late, etc."). I'm talking about jobs where "you need to go above and beyond and really prove that you deserve a promotion" is not one of the factors required to get a promotion. This may surprise you, but there are a lot of jobs like that.

I think a lot of manufacturing jobs work this way. I believe the military kinda works this way to some degree. My wife just accepted a job in academia that works this way. My home inspection job sorta works this way.

I don't know what type of job this girl had; you didn't say. Maybe she didn't have the type of job where promotions are expected at regular intervals based on tenure, but in any case she seems to have gotten that expectation. Maybe one of her parents had that kind of job and raised her with that expectation, or maybe a lot of her friends did, etc. I don't know.

Now, maybe you could say "no job should work that way, everything should be purely merit-based" and you could make a case for that. In fact you can make quite a strong case for it, and many thoughtful and intelligent people have! But I think I sensed from what you wrote that you were insinuating she was just spoiled or entitled, and also that perhaps that a lot of young people are spoiled or entitled, and I don't think that's a fair conclusion to draw from the facts provided.

One other thing I'll say is that, especially for young people whose jobs are more often unpleasant and more often don't pay well, it's possible to feel that your employer is taking advantage of you; that the exchange of your labor for their money is not truly a win-win. Young people have had less time to build marketable skills, and less capital from which to leverage new opportunities (plus there's research showing that simply having less money in the bank correlates with a lowering of cognitive function!), and so they are more likely to feel trapped in their jobs, that they have fewer alternatives to exit an arrangement if they feel taken advantage of. In such a scenario, being suddenly given extra work on top of existing duties is not an obvious sign of being tested to see if you are worth a promotion; it could just as easily be interpreted as a show of dominance by the employer, something to put you in your place, a punishment for having the gall to ask. (I am not saying these perceptions are accurate, only that they grow legitimately from negative experiences and feelings.)

Don't judge this girl too harshly.

John F Dean wrote:Even more interesting is that maybe 1/3 of the class agreed with her….yes, the youngest 1/3.

This reminds me of the final chapter, chapter 21, that magic number which is often considered the age of human maturity, of A Clockwork Orange. The chapter where the hero finally grows up and leaves his childish ways behind.

When I watched the film of A Clockwork Orange, I was intensely baffled about why they missed out the ending. It was like telling a long, complicated joke without the punchline.

Then I found out it was because the film was based on the American version of the book, which had left out the whole of chapter 21 because they believed that American audiences weren't ready for the punchline. Though apparently newer editions do contain it. Maybe the publishers finally grew up, or something...

One more thing I thought of related to this, though admittedly unlikely relevant to the girl described in the OP, is how the rationale to take initiative can change over the course of a career:

I am currently over a decade into my current career. (I did a career change in my late 20s, making my current career career #2.) In my first 1-2 years I was a sponge, absorbing everything I could find, eager to learn the ropes, develop a natural feel for the work, and get over my imposter syndrome. I worked as much as I could, and took on extracurricular learning and other related projects outside of working hours as well. I was awarded a raise after the first year (which I think also reflected the fact that the first year was sorta probational and after that it was "Yeah, you're legit").

In the 2-3 years that followed (so, years 3-5 of my career) I was equally ambitious, staying up to date on conversations in my field, thinking and writing a lot in my spare time about problems in my industry, and even publishing a paper in a prestigious venue, which was a year-long effort in its own right. I also gave presentations at conferences, created a website, and took steps to become sort of a thought leader. Once again it paid off, as I kept getting hired by new companies, each time at a much higher rate than the one before. (A robust job market helped me along, to be sure.)

Then I reached a point in my career where I realized I was comfortable. I discovered that I could do my job to my employers' satisfaction in just a few hours per week, and the rest of the time I was able to put to my own use. I upped my workouts from 3 days a week to 6 days a week starting the end of 2021, and that's also about the time my wife and I started getting into permaculture. I started doing more woodworking and other DIY stuff too. And I was able to spend a ton of time with my family and be there while my kids grow up. Why shouldn't I? My employer was happy, my retirement and my kids' college tuitions were saved for, my bills were paid. On top of that, the thought leaders in my industry had begun talking about the same things I'd been talking about for years already, only they were appearing on TEDx and Joe Rogan and Netflix documentaries--a much broader reach than I'd ever really aspired to.

The economy turned south last fall and I got laid off, and after a few months and scores and scores of unsuccessful job applications, my outlook has been affirmed rather than shaken. Initiative in your worklife is a crucial thing to be able to take when you need to. In about my third month of unemployment, I discovered a deep well of initiative still within me, and now in my ninth month I'm glad to see that well is not even close to drained, and I feel like it's moving me closer to a job. (I've taken this time off to gain skills and knowledge and perspective.) But I don't regret the years when I was comfortable. I enjoyed that time, and it's time I won't get back so I'm glad I spent it as I did. I'm healthier and more fulfilled for it.

Granted, I also didn't complain, ever. But knowing when you have a right to complain and when you don't is also a skill you learn over a lifetime, and many people never learn it.