Do The Work

Memos to the Universe

Archive for category To: Staff

For Shame.

Jul 23

Posted by Frannyo in TO: Applicants, TO: Line Managers, TO: Owner or CEO, To: Staff | No Comments

You may remember that earlier last year I featured Laurie-Ellen Shumaker in my series on great people who need to get back to  work. Laurie-Ellen was recently also featured at the Huffington Post in a series on the unemployed in America. This brief article part of their “Bearing Witness” project designed to highlight the effects of this recession on real families.

The story was fine. The comments were mostly ignorant, judgemental, and angry. For example, a user who defames a Texan great lady with the username LadyBirdJohnson wrote, “…Your story does not add up and is full of self pity and drama. Most of the time when people have trouble they only need to look at themselves to blame. Maybe you should be asking what role you played in this mess you find yourself? Actually, your story sounds as make believe as your unicorn.”  Self-righteous comments like this go on for 26 pages, thus far.

Brene Brown, A Houston-based researcher,  studies shame for a living. (I know, right? Talk about a Dirty Job) This talk she gave at the UP Experience summarizes her work beautifully. Go watch it.  It takes 25 minutes. I’ll wait.

Back so soon? Isn’t her work challenging and intriguing?

Brown notes that we most severely judge others in areas that we ourselves feel insecure.  We do everything we can to create a wall between ourselves and those we see as failing or less than ourselves. As the economy continues to lag and jobs remain in scarce supply, the self-righteousness level of our coworkers, family members, and friends may continue to ratchet up. The comments in the HuffPo story are a perfect example of that phenomenon.

Your job is important. Are you?

Aug 8

Posted by Frannyo in To: Staff, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

All work has dignity, as long as the work creates a useful product or service.  If you find that your work is not supporting your sense of importance, you can look two places – to your own mindset about it, or to a new job. For instance, I find that employers often ask me to take on work well outside the scope of the role as we originally planned it.  Because of my personality, they ask me to take on tough conversations that may or may not be part of my scope as HR director. I once found myself having a series of interesting conversations with a client who was 90 days past due. I don’t want to be an A/P clerk, but when you’re not getting paid and making payroll depends on it, that becomes the most important job in the company.

Don’t waste time worrying about if your job is worthy of your sparkling talents. Instead, worry about whether you are making yourself useful. In use there is dignity, and importance.