Be a Great Employee – Love Every Job You Have, Even if You are In a Dead End Job

I was so excited at the thought of getting out of my mother’s clutches. What I didn’t realise though when I left school, was that I couldn’t have my own bank account until I was 18 and so my mother would have signing powers on mine until then.

I didn’t care, I left school and got a job at the local ten pin bowling alley and I loved it. I didn’t love the fact that my mother took seventy five percent of my salary for board and lodging, but the freedom I had made up for this cost. I found ways to earn cash on the side that she didn’t know about and it was here anyway that I met my first husband. My mother hated him on site, and that was pretty much the same for anyone I liked or had a relationship with. Six months after meeting him I was pregnant and married and out of her grasp. I went from the bowling alley to a retail job at a record store, then on to a cashier’s job in a cash and carry store.

Starting my work education

After my first son was born I got a job as a receptionist for a firm of Chartered Accountants. Here my work education really got started. This was a small firm and almost everything came over my desk at one time or another. I started to learn about debtors and creditors, invoicing, banking. I learnt about tax, personal and business tax. I learnt about issuing dividends. I let it all soak in. The only thing I didn’t learn about was the filing as we had an old African man, Johannes, who had worked for the senior partner for years and years; he was the driver and delivery man, and he was in charge of the filing. He had his own system that none of us could work out, and only he knew where anything was. I worked there for four years and left them when I went on maternity leave to have my second son. Interestingly, pregnant women had very few rights in those days, and companies didn’t have to keep your job for you, or pay you any maternity leave. I would have liked to keep working up to the week before the birth, but I had to go when they decided to replace me six weeks before my due date.

I was always on the lookout for ways to make extra money

Throughout this part of my marriage I found ways to make extra money. I made jams, sweets and cakes, sold Tupperware, and even sold fashion watches. Where ever I could I would be “strategically scrounging” for additional cash, because I wanted more out of life for my family.

I had to go back to work

Money was tight when I was on maternity leave as South Africa didn’t and still doesn’t have an adequate welfare system for expectant and new mothers. Eight weeks after leaving my receptionist job, and two weeks after the birth of my youngest son, I began a new job. I got a position as a Girl Friday and Junior Recruitment Consultant at a personnel agency. Wow, was I in for a surprise on my first day. In my interview I was told that everyone would get together 15 minutes before work for fellowship that this was the way they started their business day. I was still so young being just few months shy of my 23^rd birthday; I really had no idea what I was letting myself in for.

An abuse of position on a spiritual level

The company I had joined was very religious and in hindsight, borderline fanatical evangelists. The early morning fellowship was a session of hymns and praise and speaking in tongues, something very foreign to me given my Church of England Anglican upbringing. What was more concerning was that every prospective placement was done with great zeal, and every potential candidate was a soul to deliver for Jesus. The company specialised in placing artisans with the automotive industry, this was where the bulk of their placements came in. The owners, a husband and wife team worked in this area only. Many of the candidates had fallen on hard times, were divorcees or had been married several times, with alcohol or abuse problems. I worked for the business for a little over two years, and during that time I worked my way up to being a full time consultant, sourcing placements and placing candidate. I was however at great odds with my own spirituality. In this time I witnessed first-hand what overzealous people could do to other vulnerable souls. I learned so much about honouring the journey of those less fortunate, that religious freedom is a basic right, including the right not to force someone to embrace your “version of the truth.” I couldn’t take it anymore and I left to take a clerical position in the credit card division of a bank.

Gaining my independence

Although none of these jobs were elevating me in a meaningful way financially, I was gaining a much needed education every step of the way. My short stay in the banking world taught me more about independence, than anything much skills wise. In the late 1980’s early 1990’s it was unusual for a woman not to get her driving license straight after school; here I was close to being 25 and I hadn’t yet learned how to drive. The women that I worked with in the bank decided that because I wanted more, I needed to be able to drive. They helped me with driving lessons, and took me to the testing station to take my driving test. All around they were a great bunch of girls and I had a lot of fun there. Skills wise I learned a lot about the banking world and how things ticked in terms of lines of credit. This expansion of my general business knowledge would always hold me in good stead.

Getting into Office Interior Design

A job offer came my way, and if the girls in the bank hadn’t helped me get my licence I would never have been eligible for it. I didn’t have my own car, but I was approached by a company that wanted sales representatives for the office furniture industry. They offered a company car and I grabbed it with both hands. This meant I wasn’t as dependent on my husband, and I could earn more money both in salary and in commission. I found something I was naturally good at. I could sell. I had a pretty low end of the market in terms of clientele, being factories and warehouses, but I sold them whatever they needed and built up a solid reputation.

Within a year I was approached by competitor with a very high end market. They wanted me to come and join them, and they would help me buy my own car. The basic was high, the commissions high and the product was very attractive, so I leapt at the opportunity. Things had been going so well for me, we were starting to establish ourselves at home, my husband had a good job, and we were building our lives together……. Then the walls came tumbling down. In the next six months my husband left me for another woman, my mother’s house was burned to the ground, and the financial director of the company I worked for embezzled millions of Rands forcing the company to close down.

A foray into the business world

I was shocked and had no idea what I was going to do. I had quite a few big orders that clients needed to be fulfilled and I handled these as an independent contractor. Word got around and one of the graphic designers at the business joined me and we started our own office and home interior design company. Neither of us knew anything about running a business, but we did ok. We had a lot of word of mouth referrals and therefore kept the wolves at bay. The South African economy however was heading for a meltdown and interest rates were climbing at a phenomenal rate soon passing twenty percent. This wasn’t good for an interior design business and we would often complete jobs and not receive our final payment. Ultimately we both choose to try and get back in to the job market which offered a more secure life

Getting back into the job market

Easier said than done when you don’t have a high school diploma. Eventually I managed to get a job with an interior plant company. They supplied the pots and plants for offices and some up market homes. It was my job to check the plant health, order new plants and sell new designs to my clients. I had no botanical knowledge, and spent a lot of time illustrating my stock requests so that the nursery knew what plants to send to my clients. The nursery staff thankfully thought I was nice and helped me a lot. While I was working here I found out that I was pregnant, with my daughter. I had been in a rebound relationship for a few months. It had ended and I had become unwell with a virus, or so I had thought. Turns out in was a “nine month virus” with a life time of responsibility. Once again I was in shock. I wasn’t supposed to be able to have more children. I carried on working in a daze, and when it was evident that I was pregnant my bosses called me in.

South Africa was a very conservative country back then, and I lived in Pretoria, the capital city which had very strong Afrikaans Christian values running through most businesses. My bosses called me in and fired me on the spot as having an unwed pregnant women on the payroll was scandalous. No ifs, buts or ands about it.

Whatever it takes

I was out. I had been pretty lonely since my divorce and I had started working at a restaurant in the evenings when my boys were with their Dad. I went to see the owners who I had come to know me pretty well. They were very understanding of my situation and they offered me as many shifts as they could. This would help me a lot but wouldn’t replace all the income I had lost. I worked day shifts when the boys were with me, I worked doubles on Wednesdays and all through those weekends when my boys were at Dad.

I was healthy throughout the pregnancy and ate well at the restaurant. After I came home from a shift and had put the boys to bed I began my other money making initiatives. I baked cakes for special occasions, I made treats for parties, and I made handmade chocolates and sweets. I did anything I could to pay the bills. Sleep was foreign to me and for nearly two years I survived on two to three hours sleep most nights.

Working at the restaurant taught me how to handle cash-ups and banking, it taught me how to handle unruly clients and patrons, it taught me a lot about organisational structure, what it took on the back end to run a business. I learnt about costing and food costing, and I most of all, learnt an extraordinary amount about human behaviour in that time. Throughout one of the toughest times of my life on an emotional level, I had the most fun, and felt the most love from the friends I had then.

After my daughter’s birth I carried on working at the restaurant but I was struggling to make the rent. I needed to make more money, but I couldn’t find anything that was better paying at the time. My landlord gave me notice and I had to make the toughest decision of my life and let my boys go and live with their Dad. I packed up our belongings and moved my daughter and me into a converted stable on a farm a long way out of town. Fuel was cheaper than rent in those days and economically it was worthwhile.

Trying my hand at Marketing Consulting

A friend of mine gave me some contract work capturing data and information for one of his projects. I did quite well at this and he was in a position to offer me some full time work on a Tourism project he was part of. This was a mini break for me, I was exposed to computers in a big way, and my dear friend gave me the best advice;

• Just use it and see how it works for you
• Save everything before making a big change, you can always go back and undo it
• Always say NO to “Are you sure you want to Format the C drive?

I loved the project I was working on, a brand new concept of Multi-media information for the tourism industry and this was going to me my first sojourn in to the airport space. It was my job to help get these multimedia kiosk in to high profile locations. I loved marketing and took to it like a duck to water. By the end of my contract I had managed to place the machines at airports and hotels. I was approached by another company developing similar units for use in the South Africa’s 1^st democratic election. These units were to be used for educating illiterate 1^st time voters around how to vote pictographically. I had made an amazing contact placing the tourism kiosk at the airport and he and I had begun a relationship and he introduced me to the advertising agency handling the then EEC, now EU voter education funds. I installed a successful education campaign across many rural areas in South Africa.

My success with this agency, the placement of the kiosks at airports, my unusual approach to breaking down old paradigms about what does and doesn’t work where and my new relationship all lead to my greatest career break ever.

So what have I done in my Work Career?

• Wrapped and tagged Newspapers
• Server at a Transport Café
• Sales assistant in a Market Shop
• Jnr PR [dogsbody] at a Bowling Alley
• Sales Assistant in a Record Store
• Cashier at a Cash and Carry
• Receptionist Girl Friday at Chartered Accountants
• Girl Friday and Recruitment Consultant at a Personnel Agency
• Sales Rep for an Office Furniture Company
• Sales Rep for an Office Interior Design Group
• Sold Tupperware
• Had a Market Stall selling Watches
• Baked cakes for Special Occasions
• Made jams, sweets and treats for Parties
• Made handmade chocolates for Weddings and Special Occasions
• Owned an Office and Home Interior Design Business
• Sales Rep at an Office and Domestic Interior Plant Company
• Casual Cashier at Restaurant
• Contracted Data Capturer
• Marketing Consultant for Tourism
• Marketing Consultant for Voter Education

What I was still to do

• Account Executive for an Airport Advertising specialist Out of Home Company
• First female Director of a corporate Out of Home Company, specialising at Airports
• Managing Director of my own Airport Media Company
• Master Coach, Mentor and Facilitator
• Radio Presenter
• Speaker
• Online Marketer
• Website designer
• Social Media Manager

Everywhere I went, everywhere I worked I asked questions. I learnt as much as I could from everyone. I wanted to know how things worked, why things happened as they did. In almost every company that I worked I was held in high regard and sadly missed when I left. I read books on how to be better at sales, at handling people, at dealing with problems, I was always learning. I am always learning.

You have to be prepared to do the things other people won’t in order to live the life and have the success other people can’t. On my vision board, and one of my goals is to obtain a university degree, not because I have to, but because I know I am good enough, smart enough to get one.

Having read Be a great employee I would hope that you realise that if you’re prepared to do whatever it takes and if you’re prepared to dream big and persist with having faith that your dream will materialise, it will. Given my childhood, my less than desirable living conditions and everything that I’m openly sharing with you through this, my story, who’d have ever thought that I would become South Africa’s first ever female director in the hugely competitive, male-dominated, Out-Of-Home industry? Well, I did and the rest is history as they say. Again, if there was anything I had to learn from being around my mother, it was to keep smiling and that even though it’s pouring cats and dogs outside, the sun will shine again and until it does, just keep a certain joyfulness about you.

Horace Walpole once said “I have never yet seen or heard anything serious that was not ridiculous” and Samuel Butler once said “The one serious conviction that man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously.” Oscar Wilde is on record as saying “It is a curious fact that the worst work is always done with the best intentions, and that people are never so trivial as when they take themselves very seriously.” This does not mean you shouldn’t be serious about a situation if it presents grave challenges or danger, however, if you meet it head-on with the same energy it’s presenting to you, you’ll never solve it or rectify it.

To this end remember what Einstein taught us “You can’t solve a problem with the same mindset that created it” and given that every second of every day you’re actively creating your life, do take a breath and try to see the funny side of things and then using a new and fresh energy, turn your adversity in to your most precious opportunity.

Questions:

Given the above, with what mind-set do you (an employee) typically embrace your workplace problems and why is this so?

Exercise:

1. Think about something in the workplace which is really bothering you right now.
2. Who is causing this problem for you?
3. What exactly is the problem and what is the impact it’s having on you?
4. When does this problem arise?
5. Where do your thoughts and feelings go when you connect with this problem?
6. Why do you allow this problem to persist?
7. How are you contributing to this problem and how could this problem be rapidly solved?
8. If you were to change how you think and feel about this problem would you be able to make it all go away?
9. When last did you have a good laugh, when last did you attempt to look for that which is amusing amidst what it is that you do every day?
10. What’s all this telling you about your general attitude most days?
11. Here, to further your knowledge on how to have a great, success enabling, attitude, is the podcast from one of our radio teaching shows on this very topic:

 
Download this episode (right click and save)

My profound lesson:

Being a great employee (and I know I was one), coupled with the many harrowing “employee” experiences which I had to navigate, taught me to defog my environment. Did you know that weather experts have calculated that a dense fog covering many city blocks, to a depth of a hundred metres, if it were gotten all together, is composed of around one large drinking glass of water? Compare this to your everyday worries. Do not allow your most precious objectives to be obscured by the fog created by worries and doubts and fears. Psychologists have worked out that of all a person’s worries, only around 8% are borderline legitimate. So, instead of allowing all those nagging uncertainties to erode your relationships with others, when they surface, think them through carefully and if they’re worthy of being in the 8% category, work them away by doing something about them. Have the chat, write the email, take action and do whatever it takes to make them go away!

I’m actually a very sunny natured person and as you’ll know by now, I just love to ask questions. Of late I’ve learned how powerful this is, as statement close my mind whereas questions open my mind, and when I’m making a point of asking the right questions, I’m really empowering a truly great and meaningful life for myself. Are you aware that questions are the creative acts of intelligence and that the questions which will always work the hardest for you and bring you the most useful information and results, are open-ended questions, especially those generated by using the 5WH&I Technique: Who, What, When, Why, Where, How and If?

You might have noticed that I made use of this in the above exercise.

What I want you to know and remember is that inside the mind of each person you meet is some knowledge that could benefit you if you will only learn what it is. This open-ended 5WH&I question technique really opens people up and lets them know that you want to hear their ideas, opinions and thoughts. Keep asking questions!

To your Success, with love

Suzanne Styles