In the 25 years that I’ve been working in Midtown, the lack of common sense in the workplace still never ceases to amaze me. Regardless of the different skill sets required for my team, I still value commons sense and the ability to get things done above all. The way I see it, making mistakes is okay; if you’re not making mistakes, then you’re not trying. Nonetheless, there is a great difference between making mistakes and simply not performing basic functions of your job. Too often do I hear employees stating that they’ve made a mistake when really they simply did not fulfill a responsibility. Here are 3 examples of not performing basic functions of a job:
- If you’re a salesperson required to make 100 calls a day and you’ve only made 74 calls.
- If you’re required to be at work by 9:00 a.m. and you come in between 9:02 a.m. and 9:06 a.m. every day. I understand trains can run late, but they don’t run late every day. If this is the case, then you should consider taking an earlier train (again, common sense).
- If I ask you to complete a project by Friday at 2:00 p.m., then I expect that you will communicate with me before the due date if there are any obstacles that might prevent you from completing the project in that timeline. If you show up on Friday at 2:00 p.m. and you begin the meeting with, “I would have completed this, but…”
While the above statements might seem obvious, you’d be surprised…”