People say “that’s not your job or you don’t have to” to me all the time. There’s different ways to say it. “That’s not your job!” in an no, I’ll do it, kind of way. Or, “that’s not job…” you don’t have to. My favourite has to be “that, is not your job!!!” When people say it like this, I really want to ask who’s job it is and why they’re not doing it?
I’m not doing it because it’s my “job.” I don’t care if someone’s going to pay me for it. That’s usually what it means in my line of work. People work as a team, but, going above and beyond what they are paid to do, now that is my job!
I do things that are not my job all the time, that is just the way I was raised. My mom taught me that if something needed to be done or I see something wrong, to make it right, help out or offer myself. She taught me this by being observant herself. If she saw something that wasn’t right she’d encourage me to help make it right.
There’s things as simple as, you leave a communal lunch table at work, clean up what’s yours and even what others have left, if you are the last one. See random paper on the school or work floor, pick it up. Then there are the hard things that are ‘not your job.’ Stay five minutes past your shift so a child can finish what they’re saying to you. Fold a families clothing if your client is sleeping and there is nothing else to do. Or, read someone a book, instead of entertaining them with your iPhone pictures or the taps your fingers make from writing a text message.
When things are “not your job.” They end up being nobody’s. Because, even the person who ends up doing the job may be exhausted, overworked and resent what their being paid to do. Everyone follows suit and, your client is board, tables stay dirty and you step over the trash you could’ve just picked up. We somehow, slowly teach our brain not to notice things or people.
I’m going to keep doing things that aren’t my job. Even if it impacts no one and people don’t see, it changes my outlook on things and impacts the way my day goes. And there are people that see, the observant ones.
alwaysanadventure 