After reading Work Matters (which I blogged about last time), I jotted down some of my own “work rules,” learned not through studying human psychology and sociology — as in Work Matters — but through years of working in restaurants, non-profits, higher ed, Peace Corps, and government jobs. Here is what “I know for sure,” as Oprah would say, helps me to feel satisfied and in control at work.
Pause and let pause. In meetings and workplace discussions, we need to normalize giving people time to pause and think before they respond. I have started to ask for a moment to think before I respond to someone. I’ll say, “Let me think about this,” or, “Hold on, let me finish writing this down.” I have a colleague who talks so fast and interrupts so freely that it interferes with my ability to fully digest what they are saying before I’m expected to answer. I use the “Let me think” approach to ensure that my job performance — or, others’ perception of my job performance — doesn’t suffer because I’m rushed to respond too quickly. If I ever run an office, this will be a golden rule.
Check-in with yourself. I have a weekly recurring appointment on my calendar that prompts me with the following bullets: Challenges, To Improve On, Learned This Week, and Misc. It’s a place to take stock of the week. The idea is to consciously identify what has been meaningful or noteworthy to you. It gives you a way to “right your wrongs” if you feel that you may have failed or fallen short, keep perspective, and be less hard on yourself. More practically, it also serves as an inventory of your projects and ways you’ve improved to bring to performance review conversations. As an attorney, I’m required to attending Continuing Legal Education (CLE) courses throughout the year and retain those records. I use the “miscellaneous” prompt to keep track of these so that when I have to report those courses to the state bar every two years.
Keep a file on yourself. I always keep a hard copy file and an electronic file of HR-related matters at my job. The hard file is for things like HR manuals and office memos that I want to be able to access quickly, notes I take about performance review discussions (side note: you should always take your own notes about any performance review or HR discussions to keep fresh in your memory what transpired), and completion certificates for various trainings I attend. The electronic file holds similar items, plus emails I exchange with my supervisor about unique time off requests, changes in title or compensation, and pending reimbursements– basically anything you might have to go back and review later. It’s the kind of file you keep at the back of a drawer and just stick papers into periodically, but when you need to, you can easily find it to access the information when concerns crop up.
Respect your leaders. I was brought up to show respect to anyone in a position of authority from me. At JCPenney, where I worked for a few years in college, we called the store manager “Mr. Wilson” even though all of the women managers (and the rest of the store employees) were known by their first names. Now I see it for the double standard it was, but it still has taken me a long time to acknowledge that throughout my working life I have often conflated deference with respect. But these are different. Just because I have to do what my manager says (deference), it doesn’t mean I respect them. Like any other relationship, work relationships are a two-way street. You can and should ask yourself if you respect the people you work for. I think it’s one of the most important things to understand about your workplace. Working for someone you don’t respect should be a red flag. It doesn’t mean you have to leave the job — it just means you have to take extra care to be on the look out for underhanded decisions, harm to your reputation, and to protect your boundaries.
Rest days. No one wants to be in a position where you have weeks of vacation time banked, only to not be able to use them because of unrelenting assignments and deadlines. Many people prioritize time off over money, assuming that they must make a tradeoff in salary to get the amount of time off they require. Don’t assume a workplace respects any “typical” schedule or work hours, but instead ask about this in interviews, and listen carefully to how they talk about time off. Is it encouraged? Spoken about in a strained way, as though you should not be asking about it? That could indicate that your prospective employer has unrealistic ideas about work. (Consider that Americans average 3.5 sick days a year even though the dominant culture discourages taking time off work for any reason.) If you are able to speak with your future colleagues or people familiar with the workplace, ask them about expectations. Unfortunately, these employers will still tell you that your compensation includes vacation and sick time even though they know the workplace culture discourages their use. Use this knowledge to your advantage and negotiate higher salary to make up for the time off you won’t actually get to use. Or you may decide that this isn’t the job for you. That’s okay, too — the reality of Americans’ lives today supports greater flexibility in working hours and use of time off. For one thing, most people have kids who need to be taken to the doctor or picked up from soccer practice. For another, the American workplace cannot be inclusive of women of color unless it accommodates the fact that the majority of caregiving is done by these women.
Clementine 