This article caught my eye because--first of all--I'm a sucker for any set of truisms, mostly because I like to look for exceptions. Second, although I've not violated all of these, I've said a lot of them to bosses in one context or another. So, here's my list:
1. "I’m only doing this job for the money."
One of the best things I ever did was be honest with my supervisor in the first civilian employer I had after the Army. His name was Brian, the industry was pest--specifically, termite--control, and I was up front with him about why I was working there. To be honest, I made it clear I liked my coworkers, I liked figuring out how to solve the testy problems and customers, but I was honestly only there for the money.
Brian recognized I was good at what I did and the fact my talent dealing with the unusual jobs and difficult customers was something most of his other employees had difficulty with. He also knew I wasn't after his job and relaxed. He then proceeded to ensure my pay was competitive to my peers and overtime was doled out based on who wanted it.
2. "I’m broke/in debt/one step away from bankruptcy."
I have an ex-wife. I married up a class and the ex-wife still tried to live to the standards to which she was accustomed. When the Army and every other major credit-card company gave us credit, she took it and ran with it. So, about a year prior to me leaving the Army and after a permanent change of station to Alaska where one or more payments were misplaced to the line of credit for the Army and Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES or the military's "company store"), I found myself on the receiving end of paying back $2800 of debt in three easy monthly payments on an income of about $1800 a month.
I took this to my supervisor and I was honest about it. There was nothing my chain of command could do to stop it, but what they did do was provide other types of support and assistance including authorizing selling vacation time to allow me added money for food and the like. In many ways, I wish I had been more honest earlier because I may have been able to prevent some of the fallout.
3. "I’m going to quit after I (fill in the blank)."
To be honest, I think this statement, usually with the (fill in the blank) replaced by an education goal is one reason I've been let go when I have been. If anything, I make a point to be honest about when my goals and priorities conflict with my employers in order to allow both parties to work things out. In some cases, the employer pushes the timeframe forward for other reasons—like the economy dropping in a pay-to-play business or by changing their staffing requirements—but, for the most part, it works out.
4. "I partied a little too hard last night."
I'm not a drinker; I don't do drugs, so this one never came up.
5. "It’s not my fault."
This one didn't work out so well.
There was an issue with a company vehicle where someone (most likely) tried to pry open a driver's door with a crowbar after I was instructed to leave it unsupervised in a nearby parking lot. Essentially, I was accused of damaging it myself, which didn't make much sense to me. I declined to sign off on the financial responsibility form. It essentially devolved into a "he said/she said" where the she was the management trainee who directed me to leave it in the parking lot.
Brian—who I mentioned in #1—was ordered to fire me if I didn't sign off on the form. I declined again and made a call to the regional manager of the company who again offered to let me keep my job if I signed off on the form. I declined to lie, filed for unemployment, and filed a complaint with the appropriate authorities.
I still lost the job, but they didn't take the $300 for the damage. Call me a bit of a nihilist, but I'm not one for lying just to keep a job.
6. "I’m bored/this job is boring."
I haven't really used this one. I'm a pretty task oriented guy, willing to change jobs if it's mind-numbingly boring, but I usually gravitate towards the interesting parts of the job anyway. Often, my solution to boredom is finding a problem to solve or developing a new way to do a job more efficiently.
I killed termites (and other social insects) for several years. Gives you a respect for them, but it's a combination of manual labor as well as problem solving and customer interaction. One of the interesting, efficiency tasks was managing to treat a house quickly and efficiently in a way you could minimize both dust and dirt inside a house.
For most houses in the Phoenix area, treating a house includes treating a trench around the perimeter; identifying, drilling and treating cracks, through the concrete floor slab; and treating the joint between the floor slab and the concrete stem wall that surrounds it either from the inside (through the floor) or through holes drilled in the stemwall. So, the technical problem includes essentially treating the entire perimeter of the house twice (inside the stemwall and out) as well as cracks.
My favorite solution when using more than one team was to jump out of the truck, greet the customer and walk them through what we were doing, setting up inside drilling by lifting carpets and moving furniture as I went. Then, before my teammates got busy, I set up there trenching tools, drills, hoses, and extension cords where I wanted them to start--generally the farthest interior starting point and the farthest exterior starting points. They could have moved their gear and started elsewhere, but most of the time they simply started where I put them.
If any special circumstances existed--like an inside-the-floor koi pond--I would walk them through that as well. The nice part is those jobs usually worked out to be a lower labor percentage (labor cost/contract price) and the lowest amount of man hours for most of the teams.
Not so much time to be bored.
7. “My job is too easy.”
I've probably used this, but I don't remember when. There is always a way to make a job harder. Challenging one's self for speed or perfection is one way. Reworking job tasks for efficiency and picking up other, more interesting tasks can be another way.
My last pest control job was actually pretty easy. I hated it most of the time because--unlike the termite work where you had several solutions to work out per job--the pest control job was essentially drive to the site, put on safety gear, spray the yard, leave a receipt, and go. Typically, the expectation was about 30 houses a day. If a client wanted more, they were expected to call in and we'd send someone back out.
Those call backs were what I really preferred. Usually, it was some pest that the general treatment didn't cover. Things like bedbugs or ants inside.
Most of the time, I "amused" myself by looking out for potential pest problems and harborage. For example, noting where cracks in walls or stucco allowed access for crickets and/or scorpions, identifying moisture conditions where subterranean termites could take hold, or standing water for mosquitoes. When I identified them, I communicated the problems with the customers so they had the chance to fix it.
To be honest, I lost that job because I was both starting college and I "didn't fit the business model" according to my supervisor. My proactive efforts weren't part of the business model and my efforts for increased quality of service reduced the quantity of houses I treated per day from about 30 to about 26.
The irony is I was one of the more flexible and complimented technicians.
8. "I can’t work with so and so. I hate him."
Not a phrase I used, but one I wish I had used.
One of my platoon mates in the Army had a reputation as a punk and tried to live up to it. Personally, I have a thick skin when it comes to insults and the like, so I shrugged off his attempts at intimidation and did my job. That worked until he tried to physically assault me.
It didn't work out well and it's one of the reasons I left the Army. What I should have done, when his issues persisted and no one else said anything about him, was to approach my chain of command with the problem instead of simply working around him.
9. “I can’t do that because of my other job.”
I've only used this statement in the context of multiple duties within the same job. I've never really moonlighted, but—at various times—I've had multiple duties within the same job that have come into conflict. Typically, I would restrict this sort of phrase to situations where I can no longer maintain the appropriate standards for each job. When I have used this phrase, I've always made attempts to offer suggestions allowing me to accomplish both duties.
For example, I worked for several months in a single doctor medical office. My primary duties was to research outstanding insurance claims and attempt to resolve who was fiscally responsible in order to get them paid. An added duty was the entry of payment information from paid claims—often because of the outstanding claims I resolved. When the priority became entering payments, I pointed out it conflicted with my primary duty and the existing procedure others used for trying to recover outstanding claims duplicated and delayed my efforts.
When the decision was made to share my primary task with another employee, I created a basic tracking form to allow us to track the work done, tasks required, and the recovered information for each client. This allowed us to quickly move back and forth between duties and clients with little duplication in effort and be able to accumulate the information needed to resolve the claims without resorting to a default "send out another batch of claim forms" plan.
In many ways—with that job—I was a victim of my own success.
10. “Oh my Gawd! How did you do this job before the Internet/text messaging/Skype?”
I've used this one only in jest. I make an effort to understand both the current method in use—for whatever job I do—as well as a little bit of history in methods. Often, the "old methods" include how to do the same task when equipment fails or certain requirements are not met. Also, being able to use a variety of technological tools allows me to be more flexible with solutions.
11. Sigh. Grimace. Eye roll. Wretching noises.
I've used these as well, mostly the grimace.
Some supervisors are dangerous. Sometimes, it pays to be able to communicate your lack of confidence in a supervisor's ideas to others in order to facilitate changing from a potentially dangerous plan. I loathe admitting this, but I've done this to communicate with patients and clients while a supervisor is present.
The first time I consciously did this, I was an Army medic and the patient had come in with swelling and pain in his hand after handling a pig's carcass with a cut on his hand. The NCO in charge at the time suggested a simple non-steroidal anti-inflammatory for the "inflammation".
Because of the rapid onset and the spreading of the swelling, I suspected it was something more and wanted our medical officer to see it. I suggested as much to the NCO, he refused to listen to the explanation. Normally, I would have left it at that, but this was something I recognized as being a decision above his pay grade. I tried to communicate the problem non-verbally to the patient. It didn't work.
When the NCO sent the patient out, I followed and told the patient to come back in a few minutes when our medical officer returned. The patient chastised me for being disrespectful to the NCO.
The patient returned 4 hours later with his entire right arm swollen, hot to the touch, and inflamed. The medical officer diagnosed it as cellulites—a rapidly moving infection—and initiated immediate medical evacuation and IV antibiotics. Then he spent the next hour tearing the NCO and me a new one for letting the patient walk out that way in the first place.
Most of the time, I'm allowed to and able to communicate what the problem is to supervisors in such a way as to avoid such issues. In general, if the supervisor's name is on the door or the business license or the hand receipts and I'm not being asked to lie, cheat, steal, or do something unethical, I'll roll with whatever a supervisor wants and I've done some silly things because a supervisor asked. Only when someone's life, limb, eyesight, livelihood, etc. are involved and no one's willing to listen do I make efforts to communicate by other means or just say "no".
12. "Do it yourself!"
Used this as well, after a fashion. Again, a stateside Army medic and a life, limb, or eyesight issue. I ordered a Battery Commander—an Army Captain—to call for a helicopter medical evacuation while triaging a soldier of his in heat stroke. Being the sole medically trained soldier present, I got a little bossy in order to overcome the Battery Commanders general reluctance to spend the Army's money that way.
Because my priority was initiating treatment and treatment was critical, I used a tone I wouldn't normally in order to make it clear the situation was both real and necessary.
13. “It’s always been done this way.”
I've used this one sarcastically. I usually use this one in conjunction with a suggestion of an alternative method. I usually simply offer suggestions when I see the potential for improvement. Knowing several ways to accomplish a task is something I prefer to learn and like to judge effectiveness of alternatives on merit.
I worked for a year in a veterinary hospital. Given the fact we were open on weekends and saw exotic animals as well as birds, cats, and dogs, we had emergency calls often. We ran into problems with triaging cases over the phone, especially when a pet owner called in with either an exotic pet (some of our vets didn't treat some types of exotics) or when they called in and had to decide whether or not they wanted to go there or somewhere else.
Because of the confusion between the receptionists and the vets or assistants, I developed a small in-house triage sheet that essentially pushed the reception person to ask the right questions so the vet could decide whether to see the pet and to track things like phone numbers and dispositions for those pets we hadn't treated before. It also sped up the in-processing for pets and owners that were treated by the hospital.
14. "Let me set you up with..."
This one, I've never said. Frankly, I try to leave the intimate relationships outside of the boss-employee purview.
15. "Sorry, I must have drifted off."
I haven't used this one. In general, I'm disciplined enough to not sleep when I'm supposed to be working and--when I can't due to illness, etc.--to call in sick when I know I'm unable to perform my job safely or to standard. I hate to leave coworkers unsupported, but I am conscious of workplace safety and health practices. I get sick rarely, but take sick days when necessary to avoid getting my coworkers sick and to promote a safe work environment.
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