Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
People tell me that as a job seeker and I'm like why do I have to? All I want is a job that I'm comfortable with..the pay doesn't matter so much. Why isn't it enough for the employer if I'm a hard worker? If I work hard that means I'd do my best to do the job that is assigned to me. But I'll admit I am looking to stay in one particular field..don't want to settle forever so I guess I do have ambitions in a way.
Also how do you work "smart"? If I'm mentally disabled how is this accomplished? Maybe I'm just too stupid to achieve this. Does that mean I don't deserve to ever work in my field if I cannot work smart?
How about this. As a middle manager in an engineering firm, when I'm given someone to work in my team I expect him to work with a certain level of common/engineering sense.
Last year, I was given this guy. I had him go out to measure surface areas of some landscaping. The work was being paid by acre.
He came back with a stack of measurements of every rock, every concrete pad, etc. that was in the way to subtract from the landscaping areas. Furthermore, he had a bunch of trapezoid shapes with measurements for the 2 angled sides and the shorter side of the 2 parallel sides. And this was after 2 days of measurements.
Do you see what's wrong with what I just said in the previous paragraph? No doubt, he worked very hard to measure every little thing that was in the way to subtract from the overall landscaping work. He also worked very hard to measure exactly the 3 sides of the trapezoid shapes that makes it impossible to determine their areas.
In the end, he wasted 2 days worth of work by working very hard but without a thought on what the hell he was doing.
Afterward, I patiently asked him if he could calculate the areas of these trapezoids he measured. He tried to do one of them and came to the realization that it was impossible to calculate the areas from his measurements. Why didn't he think of this before he spent 2 whole days measuring them? I also asked him to deduct the little pieces of rocks and concrete that he had measured from the areas he had and compare the areas (in acre) to when he doesn't deduct. Exact same numbers.
Complaints about him aside, he's gone now so I don't have to deal with him anymore.
Working hard doesn't always amount to any real productivity.
I'll be frank. Anyone can work hard. Heck, anyone can work 15 hours a day and work until one drops dead.
To me, working hard is just stupid.
I've been doing very well in the corporate world. I've made it to middle management in just a couple years while it takes others many more years than that. And I don't work hard at all. I always take the path of the least resistance. I work smart.
Let me give you an example. In the last company I worked for, my boss one time decided he wanted a folder for each item in the design. There was about 8K items. He wanted the name of the folder to have the item number (8 digits) and the description. So, he assigned that to me. He was expecting me to sit there all day long clicking away creating new folders in the server and typing in the item numbers and descriptions.
An hour later, he walked by my office and noticed I was filing some paperwork. He became irritated and said he needed the assignment done ASAP. I told him I finished it like 30 minutes ago. He went onto the server and there they were 8 thousand folders with the correct naming conventions on them. He came by again and asked me how I did that so fast. I wrote a java script to do all that work for me. Are you kidding? I wasn't going to sit there all day manually creating 8 thousand folders and naming them correctly.
He later told me whenever he assigned that to someone it always took them days to do it. Never occurred to anyone to write a short computer script to achieve the same result in SECONDS.
Whenever I do something, I always take a step back and try to figure out how to do it better, faster, and more efficiently.
My company recently instituted a new electronic way to keep track of the work being done. Not hard to do, just repetitive and takes about 30 minutes to go through the process. And everyone has to do it on a daily basis. I spent the first day with the new system figuring out ways to do the work more efficiently so I don't have to waste 30-40 minutes each day on this. I finally figured out how to do it the fast way and achieve a more accurate result in 10 minutes or so.
Later, I spotted one of the guys working under me typing in each letter at a time to perform this task. He usually takes like an hour to do it. Typing one letter at a time. I showed him my way and demonstrated. What just took him 40 minutes to do I showed him how to do it in 10 minutes. The next day, I spotted him doing it the old way, taking forever to manually type in one letter at a time.
Take a wild guess what I put on his review.
Working hard is for people who have no motivation to advance. If you have ambitions, I highly encourage you to work smarter, not harder. Trust me, there are always better, more efficient ways to doing things. You just need to motivate yourself to see the more efficient ways.
I only have two question.
The guy who went back to doing things the old way, was he a subordinate of yours?
The guy who went back to doing things the old way, was he a subordinate of yours?
And, what is your education level?
He was fresh out of college new hire. I was training him, so yes he was working under me. Let me guess, you were going to say mind my own business? If I'm training you, I expect you to absorb everything like a sponge. And if you're doing something the long way really slowly and I show you a better, more efficient way at doing it, I expect you to stop wasting my time.
He was fresh out of college new hire. I was training him, so yes he was working under me. Let me guess, you were going to say mind my own business? If I'm training you, I expect you to absorb everything like a sponge. And if you're doing something the long way really slowly and I show you a better, more efficient way at doing it, I expect you to stop wasting my time.
You guessed incorrectly.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MetroWord
My education level is masters. Why?
I was curious.
Mod cut.
Last edited by PJSaturn; 02-19-2016 at 02:55 PM..
Reason: Orphaned (quoted post has been deleted).
I created this thread because there seems to be an overwhelming consensus on here that hard work trumps all, which I think is ridiculous. Real productivity comes from innovation. It could be on many different levels, from hundred billion dollar industry like Apple to an individual sitting in an office somewhere who came up with a slightly better way at doing something.
Or do you prefer we go back to hammer and chisel with stone tablets to keep records? After all, it's a lot harder work to try to keep records with hammer and chisel on stone tablets than it is using microsoft excel, right? So, therefore, hammer and chisel is clearly better, since we have to work like a million times harder than using excel.
I agree with everything you said MetroWord. I can't believe how some people try to get too technical and avoid the point you're trying to make regarding working smart not hard. Sometimes working hard doesn't get you far, like this guy mentioned about copy/paste for hours because it's easier. Doing that makes you a tool that is easily replaced since it doesn't take a genius to do that, while what MetroWord did makes him stand out for using his mind and saving time and money.
I also agree with what you said about learning to program, while I know not everyone can learn programming, the point is learning other stuff in your career to make the job easier and more effective. This can be as simple as my experience in the blue collar world like when I worked in warehouses I had to push carts and use ballet jacks, I finally decided to get my forklift license which made my job a whole lot easier and did the work faster. Now if I do decide to work in warehouses again, that forklift license will help me get a job easier.
Is there a point to this other than to blow your own horn? Anybody in corporate America knows that the hardest workers are considered the stupidest. Managers and execs work the least of anyone and they look down on anyone who "needs" more than 8 hours to do their job. But jeez...there's no one in your office whose actual job is to do EUC type tasks to figure out how to simplify repetitive tasks? I mean you'd not do well in my company because you're too hands on...lol. Everyone on my team knows how to code.
So...you may do "well" and make money...you certainly aren't a charmer and you're probably glad you're not! You could be a great mentor to many but I don't think you really want to share your knowledge - you're more of a hoarder.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
