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Fitting Into the term "Community" in the Workplace
All throughout the college, I always worked at being an overachiever. Succeeding in all of my courses and doing better than the majority of the other students.
After recently graduating, this is showing in my personality. I love the team that I work with, and our supervisor is awesome and VERY supportive - I am delighted to be working under him. He's the kind of guy who constantly takes out to lunch, has paid for some meals for us, and he's always willing to help out and give feedback. However, my subconsciousness seems to want me to throw anyone who I can under the bus.
This morning, thinking that I was following proper decorum, I sent a whereabouts stating that I was working from home today and would be returning to the office. A whereabout is basically an itinerary of where you will be for the week, if you are working on field and billing. I work as a Business Analyst and part of my job involves billing and working in the field.
My supervisor let me work from home today, since I have stuff that is going on. Very accommodating towards me. I asked him if I should send out a whereabouts, and he said that he wouldn't, if he were me, but if I wanted to I could. Thinking logically now, if he wasn't supposed to do that, I could have gotten into him really big trouble.
I ended up getting into a situation, thinking that I was following proper decorum, where he told the VP of Human Resources (who does the majority of our secretarial work and reviews the resumes) that he told me not to and that I want to be like my other co-workers (who are billing and out of training). I have only been there for two months.
I brought it up with him, and he said that they love having me, but that I have to start thinking logically and recognize the term community, to paraphrase him. He is understanding that I am new to this, and it is an informal environment, but there are things that you have to do. For example, we have to defend each other, help each other out, etc. Most of all, no one should stand out from the rest of the staff.
How can I turn this part of my personality off?
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It would be wonderful if all people who wanted to change something about themselves could be so easy as just flicking a switch and turning it off. Life isn't that easy.
First you need to understand the reason why the personal change is important and how it will benefit you which Adviceman did good explaining to you. Second is wanting to change. And the third part, the hardest is finding a way of going about it that works best as tricks for you to learning.
Changing a habit takes around a month at least or more to become a permanent part of you.
You've heard of people making affirmations, sometimes in the mirror? I believe that can help in cases like this where a person wants to change. As far as psychology goes, your conscious mind may understand and want to implement the changes but your subconscious mind may still be running under old or outdated rules and at worst, fight against your conscious self. I think this is where talking to yourself in a mirror and telling yourself how you need to act a different way now regarding your employment is important. You'll basically be reminding and instructing your subconscious.
As far as listening to someone tell you something else other than what you have been told in the beginning are corporate policies you must adhere to, stick with that ALWAYS. The reason why is that other than the owner, supervisors, bosses, managers, anyone in any kind of position of authority are human and either prone to error or purposely cutting corners and slacking cus they've not been caught before.
I work in fast food Corporate office for the region we're in would be the top Dog. They are the Boss of my restaurant manager. That manager is over shift managers and I have been asked to do things that went against instruction from my manager or from Corporate simply cus they didn't know their stuff well enough. In situations like this, its your hide on the line if you do the wrong thing because they asked and in the end if someone higher up finds out and the person who told you the wrong thing is afraid of looking bad or losing their job, they could lie and say they told you the opposite but you decided to do it wrong anyways. And then there are company policies. We are not supposed to wear nail polish for example of one. It can accidently chip and get into someones food. But I see plenty of staff wearing nail polish including one or two managers. I know its against the rules. The top manager sees it and does nothing. But I will not wear it. Why? Because anything I do that skirts the rules a little bit can go into my employee file and be used as a way to let me go in the future. We heard of a manager who was let go for eating extra food that wasn't what a customer ordered. Thats a no no and I know that person well enough to know she wouldn't do it with cameras watching most our moves. What I can say is she was very difficult to get along with to the point many people quit cus they couldn't handle her. When not a single person liked her, firing a person cus people don't like you isn't a good enough reason. Thats when a company can and will resort to using whatever little thing they were willing to overlook before but is solid proof to legally be able to fire a person.
So, its best policy to always do your best, do what you know is right and not to veer from that, no matter what person in the company other than the owner or corporate for the reason they changed policies. In fast food, policies change overnight. So every day I am scheduled, I ask the manager on site for what changes to rules there are, what are we out of, what is new on menu being offered, etc. because with no 9-5 M to F work schedules, all the employees aren't there at the time something new is implemented. Then verify as soon as you can with other managers or employees that they have been told the same new policies to be sure what you've been told was correct. Good luck!
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I'm going to make a stab at explaining this and I'm not sure I'm going to pull it off as it is not a great subject for a one way communication. Let's start by realizing that for 16 years of schooling or more you have been encouraged by family and teachers to do your best and to try to stand apart from others.
This is a motivator both for you and others. For you because it is realized you like to stand out, that you have grown accustomed to over achievement. For others it was look at Carol if she can do it so can you. Competition is the best form of motivation. My company uses it to motivate the sales force. What salespeople are at the top of each region each week get rewards. Those at the bottom are told to look at the guys on top that they are no different and they should be able to at least equal them.
Not all employers believe in this type of competition. Many believe it is counter productive as the over achiever is generally not willing to share information with the group for then he or she does not stand out. By community they also mean team and teamwork.
If your with me so far now comes the hard part. What you have to learn is not to jump the gun. If you have an idea that will make something you do easier or better or if you see something is being done wrong. Share it first with the group you work with and get their feedback. IF they agree with your thinking then share your thoughts with what you feel should be done and find a way that it can be implemented as a group.
IF your company has a handbook for how certain things should be done such as time reporting. Find the section that applies to your community or job and follow it. IF you have questions ask them. Remember this is all new to you and it is expected you will have questions. They expect that coming from academia to the business world is going to be a trauma of sorts for it is a drastic change to how you have been trained to do things. They expect some mistakes and they expect you will learn from them. They also expect questions even ones you think may be foolish or stupid.
Just remember the only stupid question is the one you don't ask. I hope this helps you some what.
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