September is back to school month. (At least it is in New York, where I’m from. Here in Texas, I believe the kiddies return in August. No matter.) Most of us in the working world can fondly recall the days when we had long breaks to celebrate Christmas, spring and summer, back before we were slaves to our cubes. These days, watching school buses drive by or sending our own kids out into the world, we can’t help but wonder: When did I get trapped inside a Dilbert cartoon?
Yet the office is a school of sorts. Few of us can say that we spend 40+ hours a week, 50 weeks a year, at this place without learning a thing or two. The trick is to keep an open mind about what you can learn from your employers, your colleagues and your customers. Even the people who irk you the most have something to teach you, if you are open enough to listen. Maybe you overhear that salesguy who beats you to the last spot in the garage each morning on the phone with a prospect, and are surprised to hear how understanding he is about their business problems. Or perhaps you notice that the woman in support who always drinks the last of the coffee without making more stays extremely late one night to make sure that a customer with a problem is taken care of.
Regardless of the lesson, the people in our lives are all capable of teaching us something we didn’t know before, and hard as it may be to believe, that does include the people we work with. Likewise, our own actions can help to shape others, whether we are aware of it or not. So keep an eye out to see what new things you can learn this year, and also, what you can teach.
- April Boland, Journyx Communications Coordinator