Day 773 of 1000
We have some challenges at my work that require me to make an unscheduled trip to Denver for a couple of days next week. It needs to be done and I am the best one to do it. One of our vendors has really not met their commitment, so we have to pick up the slack. One of the people who works for the vendor has caused lots of delays. Because he is not willing to try to make adjustments for his lack of performance, we will have to put a man in his mid-eighties on an airplane to deal with the problem. An unwillingness to at least make an attempt to do the right thing when it will cause grief for the people you have let down is pretty egregious.
Kelly was in a situation at her summer internship where she thought she had fallen behind in her work. She was tasked to learn some pretty complicated materials and she just did not understand it as well as she should. Her future tasks depended on the new knowledge. I asked her how long it would take to learn the material. She told me she could do it in three or four hours. I told her she should consider going into work the coming Saturday. Because it was a place that needed a security clearance, she had to ask permission. When she called her supervisor to make the request, her administrator told her it was not permitted for interns. The administrator laughed a little after Kelly asked the question.
Kelly was a little embarrassed when the administrator laughed. She did not find out until later that the laughter was because her direct supervisor who needed her to learn the new material was sitting beside the administrator when Kelly made the call. They had gotten a kick out of her desire to go the extra mile. Kelly’s boss mentioned it to her the following Monday and thanked her for the attempt. He assured her she was doing just fine. Both the administator and the director of the division brought it up with Kelly during her exit interview. A willingness to go the extra mile is worth it. It does get noticed. Unwillingness gets noticed, too.