working stupid

I met with my boss today in one of his weekly ‘Monday Morning Meetings’ which are held once every week...or whenever he remembers. Truthfully, I’m often overjoyed when his weekly meetings occur on a monthly, rather than weekly, basis.

The general topics discussed are usually things such as sales strategies (“why the hell aren’t you selling more?!”) and morale boosting (“do you like your job here? Then you better start selling more!”)

I took a seat directly across the particle board desk from my boss. “Look,” he began, “you’re just not working smart enough.”

“I don’t understand,” I responded. “I mean, I’ve been meeting all of my monthly goals. My paperwork is always done by the end of each week…and often times, I’m the last one to leave the office in the evening. I feel that my work ethic here has been impeccable.”

“No, no, your work ethic has been fine…it’s not how hard you’re working, but how smart you’re working.”

“So you think I’m working too hard?” I asked.

“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all. You’re working hard enough, just not smart enough.”

I mulled this over for a minute, but being at a loss for words simply said, “Hmmmm.”

“You see,” he continued, “if you’d continue working just as hard, but do it in a smarter fashion, you’d get twice as many results as you’re currently getting.”

“So how do I start working smarter?”

“Smart work isn’t something that can be taught,” he told me. “It’s just something that you either have or don’t have.”

“So I’m not working smart now, and it’s not something that I’m going to learn, but you expect me to do it.”

“Exactly,” he answered, pleased that he had gotten through to me.

He swiveled around in his chair, turning his attention to his email…his subtle way of letting you know that the meeting was finished and that he had tired of you.

As I returned to my desk, my head was spinning with thoughts of hard work, and smart work, and how in the world I was going to learn all about working smartly. And working hardly. And doing both simultaneously.

I stared at my computer monitor in front of me. ‘Work smart’ I told myself…as if wishing it would cause it to happen. ‘Work hard.’ All I discovered was that it’s hard work trying to figure out what, exactly, my boss is ever trying to say…smart or not.