Today’s Favours… Tomorrow’s Expectations…

I’m a self-proclaimed helper; I tend to be there whenever anyone needs a hand with something… Probably more so at work rather than home, but above and beyond has tended to be the name of my game…

I do wonder every so often where it has gotten me…

I have never wanted to be “The Guy”… That’s a sales role. Sales people tend to be the glory seekers, I have never met a rep who hasn’t wanted a customer to think that he or she “got it done”… but in reality, it is the people who stand behind them who get shit done… The rep simply says “This is what has to happen”… and everyone else works out how to do it… more often than not as a “favour”…

When does a favour become less than a favour and become an expectation…

Believe me, I am not one of those people who describes a favour as any task that could be loosely regarded as part of my job… but for all of you who don’t know… I am a buyer… When did selling/delivering become part of it?

I never have a day go buy where a rep doesn’t say to me “Is that going to my customer tomorrow?”… and I constant wonder why they ask me? My only answer SHOULD be “Well, I have purchased the stock, it has been delivered and receipted”, but that isn’t answering the question that is asked… So I end up making 3 calls to different departments making sure that something is going to happen, that at the end of the day, should not be my responsibility…

Why do I do this? It happens so often now that it can’t possibly be a favour… So, if in the past it was a favour… Is it now possibly an expectation?

My manager asked us all to start thinking about job descriptions a few weeks ago, and the only thing I could come up with was “Any reasonable and lawful request”… and let’s face it, lawful can be elastic!

This all makes me wonder, have I created this issue myself… In essence, although I don’t want to be “The Guy”… I obviously want to be the guy that “The Guy” turns to… and frankly, I enjoy it.  I would hate to be the person who refuses to do things because “It’s not my job”… really, does that attitude get anything done? Maybe it was growing up with parents who ran their own business, and if there was work to be done, it really came down to either one of them (mainly Mum) to make sure it did. Maybe I have more to thank them than what I give them credit for? I know my Dad really liked being “The Guy”… and Mum was the sort of person who hated getting the credit, but in fact did most of the work.

Can successful business’ survive without those two elements… Probably not.

So, why rant about it? I guess I’m not ranting… venting maybe… but definatly not ranting. I guess I would not have it any other way… Except for occasionally when I want to get my own job done… Please people RING SOMEBODY ELSE!!!!