Coming soon my new article: “From “Office Pet” to Office “Threat,”: Navigating Trust in the Workplace and Beyond.”
In the early days of my career, as a young renaissance businessman, I wore many, many hats. Growing up, I worked in my family’s business, where I would go from being the cashier to stocking shelves. In fact, I even helped my sister write a grant proposal as a youngster, swept the floors, and on occasion, mowed the grass. As a youngster, a strong work ethic was not just appreciated, it was but expected.
This work ethic followed me into college, where I often completed assignments weeks before their due dates. I thrived on challenges and was always ready to lend a helping hand. In one of my previous jobs (was new on the on the scenes, a month or so) after consistently meeting my own deadlines and completing assignments, I began offering assistance to my former colleagues. Initially, they gladly accepted my help, appreciating the extra support.
However, a turning point came when a manager noticed my willingness to assist others. Suddenly, when I finished my tasks ahead of deadlines/schedules and offered help once more, I was met with a surprising response: “No, I don’t need your help.” It was perplexing, to say the least. It wasn’t until a former colleague noticed me assisting the janitor. My colleague pulled me to the side and had “a talk.'” I won’t be sharing the details of the conversation, but the bottom line was that people thought I wanted their jobs. I was actually surprised, considering many of my colleagues had way more experience than me at the time.
Contrary to the misconceptions, I genuinely wanted to help and learn new things, and learn from my colleagues. However, this incident made me realize that I needed to work on building trust in the workplace. Unlike my family’s business, where trust was already established, this was a different environment where I had to “build it.”
Stay tuned for my next article, where I’ll dive deeper into the nuances & intricacies of trust-building in the workplace (in general, in life, et al).