Be Excellent

During my stint as a sub in K-12 schools I attended many meetings but I'll always remember one in particular. I'd been covering a long-term assignment as a personal tutor/assistant to a disabled girl and had been at the school for a month. At one time during the meeting, one of the teachers referred to me as "What's-er-name." She apologized afterwords but it still had the effect of making me feel like a servebot.

One of my favorite work/career authors is Deborah Ann Smith (Temp, Work With What You Have). In Temp, one of her tips for having good experiences on temp assignments is "be excellent to each other." The world would be a much better place if we all practiced this, of course, but I have found it especially crucial when I'm either working a highly stressful job or am in a situation where I'm new or temporary and not part of the longtime office community.

To me, being excellent to everyone includes the following:

• Being interested in colleagues as people, not just coworkers. This gets me out of the "what can you do for me?" mode and into "maybe we can help each other."
• Learning names. "I'm just no good at names" is a cop-out. Keep a notebook for stray facts and info when you're new on the job and jot down notes about each person you meet.
• Greeting people when you pass them in the hall. This is so basic, but so many people don't do it.
• I read a saying somewhere: "Be good to each other. Remember that each of us is fighting a battle." Remembering that every person has struggles we don't know about helps build empathy. It also helps us appreciate people as full human beings with loves and lives outside the workplace.
• Refusing to get sucked into petty office politics or indulge in gossip.

No one can practice these perfectly all the time, but I've found in my own work life that just trying is a good start, turns it into a habit and makes a big difference.