At Grandpa's, I have always had a reputation as a hard worker, who never complains, and always works above and beyond whenever the opportunity presents itself. I had initially gotten the job because my friend's dad owns the place. Many of my other friends had worked their in the past, because of this connection, and had developed a poor reputation due to the fact that they had different priorities at the time, and never really put their full effort into their work. So, before I had even started working, many of my co-workers expected the same poor work ethic that had previously been displayed by my friends.
Because of this prior misconception about my work ethic, I felt the need to get rid of this reputation as soon as possible. The first couple of weeks, I made sure to develop a strong personal relationship with each co-worker, as well as perform my assigned tasks in the most timely manner possible, as well as accomplish tasks that were not directly a part of my job description.
That summer I also worked at the beach, as a camp counselor Monday through Friday during the mornings, from 9 am to 3 pm, and then went to work at Grandpa's at night, from 4 pm to 10 pm. Because of this fact, coupled with the work I produced at Grandpa's, my reputation quickly changed, to what I described earlier, as a strong worker.
As I quickly developed this reputation, it began to perpetuate itself. Since my co-workers had the expectation that I would come in and do solid work, I began to expect it from myself whenever I went to work. I enjoyed the personal, and work, relationships I had developed with my co-workers and I did not want to jeopardize these relationships by performing sub-par work.
Since I started attending college, I have gone back to work at Grandpa's over breaks, and during the summers, when I am home. Since that summer, it has been more tempting to stray from the reputation that I had built from the previous summer. Since I had already built the reputation of being a hard worker, I could deviate slightly from the work production that I had previously displayed, and it would, for the most part, go unnoticed by my co-workers. At the end of the day, I would still be paid the same amount in hourly wage, and tips from servers.
There was no real immediate personal gain from deviating from the strong work ethic I had shown in my first summer working at Grandpa's. While it may be noticed by my co-workers, I had already built a strong relationship with most of them that it didn't really effect that significantly. Overall the only benefit would be less effort needed from me, or providing less work for equal income.
It is interesting that you brought up the point of other people's reputations influencing your reputation in the early days of your work. In many aspects of life, people will have developed prejudices against groups that we are a part of that will cause us to have a negative "baseline" reputation with them from the get-go. Just as in your case, getting rid of one's baseline reputation and replacing it with a positive reputation will take hard work.
ReplyDeleteOne thing you might reflect on is whether you think your hard work changed your coworker's expectations of other friends that might work at the bar in the future. Can a positive reputation developed by one person in an organization cause similar people to start with a positive reputation as they enter the organization in the future? Have you seen this in real life? Do you know how any friends your age that came to work at the bar subsequently were perceived by the staff at the beginning? Can positive reputations "carry" as well as negative ones obviously have? With your friends that worked at the bar before you, do you think their negative reputation at the beginning perpetuated itself in the same way that the positive reputation you developed did (i.e., do you think they worked less because others expected them to work less?)
The part of the story that is missing from what you told is to describe your own preference for the work and how that preference was wrapped up in your motivation to do the job. I looked for a quote for you, but I didn't find it, so I'm going to wing it here. It goes something like this - if you enjoy doing it, it isn't work.
ReplyDeleteNow I'd expand on that some and say that what you enjoy or not can depend on the time and place. If you'd rather be somewhere else - say your friends were having a party that you wanted to go to - then working late at Grandpa's might be a drag that evening, but not other evenings.
You said the since college there was more temptation to stray from your reputation. Is it something like what I said in the previous paragraph? Or something else? (Maybe it no longer is a challenge but was when you were in high school.) What I'm trying to say here is that you can tell the story a little better by giving more detail and it will speak to the issue of whether you were really cashing in on your vacation or not.
I did not go into enough detail about the specific work involved in performing the job, as this would have cleared up what you addressed in the first part of your comment. Much of the job included heavy lifting, cleaning (of EVERY area of the restaurant), and essentially doing every job that nobody else wanted to do. Naturally, I did not enjoy the actual work itself. The money received from performing the job was the main motivation to continue work there.
DeleteSince I began working there, temptations of more fun activities had always been present. There was no change from high school to college. Possibly, the effect of only having such short periods of being at home, made the temptation to do more fun activities stronger because of the fact that I had limited opportunities to see those friends, but if anything, this would create a stronger work ethic, as I would have been more motivated to get the work done faster, and get cut from work earlier.