Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

Further evidence that people tend to do only what they want to do while at work.

Years ago, one of the guys in our office went missing. He was safe and sound, but we didn’t know it at the time. He was told to attend a meeting at a motel in another city, but was told the wrong motel. Be that as it may, he was still officially  missing. He should have made a few more phone calls and such to let us know where he was, but he didn’t.

Someone in our office has the job to locate missing persons (this is a Federal regulation for the Federal workplace). That someone called the police, called the hospitals, called the FBI, and called about everyone else you would call to locate a missing person.

The missing person finally contacted the office late in the afternoon.

A week later, the missing person was in the office and was confronted by the someone who made all those frantic phone calls. The someone was “chewing out” the formerly missing person, when the missing person said, “but, that’s your job.”

The missing person was correct. The person who made all the locate-the-missing-person phone calls had that on his job description. He hated that aspect of his job, but it was his job.

People (try to) do only what they want at work.

There are dozens of lessons for those of us whose job is to supervise and lead other people at work. The top lesson is to recognize and accept the above about people – no matter who they are or how long they have been doing their jobs.