Posted by
Madeline's Dad on Monday, March 10, 2008 9:12:01 AM
I didn’t, until I thought back to my own early days in an office, at Vintage Books, eight years ago. The phones trilled continuously, and you could hear the springs in an assistant’s chair as she popped up to announce who was on Line 2. All the noise seemed to add energy and urgency to the day.
And I can’t imagine how a young employee learning the ropes can acquire what she needs to know, as speedily, without the advantage of eavesdropping on her boss’s phone conversations.
How can anyone get a grasp of an industry’s pertinent relationships or decision-making time frames, let alone the fragility of a particular office’s egos, if there are so few chances to hear these people talking to the outside world? The office phone call, properly overheard, is really the cheapest, easiest way to transmit institutional knowledge.
I recall one of my early jobs, learning the ropes exactly as the author writes about-by overhearing my co-workers in their "cubes", talking with clients. After the call would end, I remember poking my head over the short wall, and asking questions about the conversation. There really is no better way to learn than by observation.
Today's younger (read: fresh out of college) worker is at a huge disadvantage with their more seasoned counterparts. They are too wrapped up in the tech-stuff: text messages, e-mail, smartphones, MySpace, Facebook, and not dialed in enough to the important things like communication skills and interpersonal relationships.
I still think the best job I had to prepare me for what the business world is really like was waiting tables. You had "normal" customers most of the time, with a few really nice ones sprinkled in, and the occasional horror story to balance things out. As a waiter, you have to be able to multi-task (juggling many tables at once), you have to be able to handle multiple personalities (cooks, busboys, hostesses, and the guests themselves), and you have to do it all in a timely manner. If you did it well, you were rewarded with a nice tip. If not, you weren't. Just like with the "office phone call", you observed the succesful folks, and tried to mirror their approach.