“There is nothing wrong with being an average (mediocre) employee. Not everyone aspires to be in management. If the person meets the requirements of their current job, and they like the job and want to stay in the job, so be it. Stop trying to force people to get to the next level. The reality is that work is not the most important thing in everyone’s lives. People have more important things in their life than work. Work is simply a means to get the money we need to pay the mortgage and our other bills. Work is a low-priority event for most people. I’m only willing to do the bare minimum that it takes to get a paycheck every two weeks. As long as I am meeting the requirements of my job, than that is good enough. Don’t expect any more of me because I will not be a slave to any company.”
—-Commenter Jo-Ann Youngblood (of Tulsa, Oklahoma) in response to New York Times small business blogger Jay Golz’s 2011 post, “The Dirty Little Secret of Successful Companies,” in which he concluded that what dragged companies down were what he called “the sixes”—mediocre employees who just weren’t very good at their jobs.
George Costanza, hard at work.
Golz reprinted the comment today in a Times feature selecting highlights from the blog. I like Golz’s answer, which read in part:
“…As the owner of a business, I have the right to avoid hiring someone who only wants to do the bare minimum to get a paycheck. In fact, if I hire too many people with that attitude, I will be out of business. This is Capitalism 101, survival of the fittest. I operate in a very competitive market. I don’t have any patents, any special marketing magic, or any secret recipes. My companies can only exist and grow if they do a much-better-than-average job.
One of the ways I try to ensure that is by hiring and keeping dedicated, professional people who want to do a good or even great job. While I have no doubt that some of my 115 employees consider their jobs, as you put it, simply a means to get the money they need, they still manage to do an above-average job at work….Apparently your view works for you, or at least it has so far. But there is another dirty little secret of successful companies, or even mediocre ones. When business slows down and they have to lay off people, many of them turn first to the people who do the bare minimum. Or sometimes, especially if everyone is doing the bare minimum, the whole company essentially gets laid off — by its competition.…
I would add this perspective., as well. When an individual is hired for a job, the employer is entrusting some aspect, however large or small, of the success of his or her enterprise, occupation, and its mission, as well as its obligations to customers and contractor, investors and its other employees, in that individual. That trust is based on the reasonable assumption that the employee will work up to her ability, which means that she will be doing the very best she can. This hardly makes her a slave. Doing the best you can at any task is the mark of integrity, fairness, responsibility, diligence and respect, both for herself and for those dependent her work. An employer has a right to expect that.
What is the “bare minimum level it takes to get a paycheck”? I think the employer determines that. I deal every day with surly clerks and salespeople who don’t look me in the eye, never say “hello,” never smile, and act as if I am inconveniencing them by asking for assistance. I blame any supervisor who tolerates that. The bare minimum isn’t adequate, though, sadly, it may be average. Adequate is trying the best you can to do a superior job. Excellent is succeeding. Doing what Jo-Ann advocates?
That’s stealing. Especially at times like these, there are hundreds, nay, thousands of Americans who will take the job Jo-Ann is intentionally sleep-walking through and kill themselves to show that it belongs to them. This is why the current attitude that everyone has a right to a job is toxic, and needs to emphatically banished from the culture. You have no right to keep a job that you aren’t willing to do your best at. Sure, not everyone is capable of, or interested in, rising to the next level, but that does not excuse anyone from not delivering their best work in the level they are in.
If I have two candidates, one of which has superior skills and is over-qualified for the job but who will only work to the bare minimum level of productivity necessary to keep it, and an individual who has lesser ability but who will work to the limits of those abilities to achieve the same results the talented slacker will achieve, I am giving the less skilled applicant the job, and the more skilled slacker a lecture, not that it will do any good.
That doesn’t mean that a good employee has to sacrifice his family, health, sanity and private life, work extra hours and make the company his life. It means that a good employee understands what it means to have a job, and the obligations that go with it. One of those obligations is to do the job well.
Not well enough to get by.
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Source:
Graphic: Mitre Images
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Whatever happened to doing the best you can at your job as a simple matter of personal pride?
That a very feudal position you have there.
How so?
Pride in a job well done is based on the ruling classes subjugating peons and serfs. Dukes and earls didn’t rely on pride in a job well done: they expected to be paid. The pride was only reward enough for the people who were not paid or underpaid.
Complete B.S. If you feel subjugated by doing a job with pride, you deserve what you get, which, hopefully, will be a pink slip.
That’s not at all what I said. I said that the idea of pride in a job well done being reward enough is feudal.
If reward ENOUGH is your meaning, then I owe you an apology. Reward ENOUGH for a job well done, like reward ENOUGH as a place in heaven, has its adherents, but is by no means a universal ethical requirement in my opinion.
Amen. i Work in a factory, and the just to cash a Check attitude makes more for others at best, and can kill or maim for life at work. It also effects our production bonus’,
If the people are actually doing less than the minimum, they aren’t relevant to the quote. If the minimum is dangerous, then you should put the blame on the factory, not the people.
I’d also note that group bonus’ are horrible motivators.
Very good point. The factory management has the responsibility to set the standards, and make the standards clear. And these standards must be tailored to fit the firm’s need.
Of course, this cuts both ways. Setting very high standards makes for a high quality good or service. But setting high standards means having to offer more pay than firms that set lower standards. That would translate to a costlier good or service, and if not enough people are willing to pay enough money to cover the costs of offering the good or service, then that high standard would be unaffordable.
Conversely, lower standards means a firm do not have to pay as much. But then the quality of the good or service offered would not be as good as firms that set higher standards. And even at a lower price than other goods or services of the same type, people may not be willing to pay enough money to cover the costs of providing the lower quality good or service.
I don’t see a problem with doing the minimum required for your job. Whatever you agreed to with the company is what you need to do. If the company wants you to do more, they should set the requirements and expectations to be more. A contract is a contract. If the required number of pieces of flair is 15, and Jo-Ann’s wearing 15 pieces, then she’s good. You shouldn’t expect her to wear 37 pieces of flair. You can be happy that an employee wears 37 pieces of flair, but you can’t be upset that Jo-Ann’s just wearing the 15 pieces.
Jo-Ann is not advocating stealing by any means. Doing less than her minimum requirement would be stealing. Jo-Ann is actually making the point that being forced to do more than the requirements would be stealing. She’s right.
As for your clerk example, if the job requirements include service with a smile, than not smiling is below the minimum requirements. That’s not something that Jo-Ann is advocating.
You have no right to keep a job that you aren’t willing to do your best at.
This is just stupid. You have no right to expect me to do more than you’re willing to pay me to do.
If I have two candidates, one of which has superior skills and is over-qualified for the job but who will only work to the bare minimum level of productivity necessary to keep it, and an individual who has lesser ability but who will work to the limits of those abilities to achieve the same results the talented slacker will achieve, I am giving the less skilled applicant the job, and the more skilled slacker a lecture, not that it will do any good.
Since when did you become a (little c) communist? I really thought you were a capitalist.
If we’re talking quantity of work only, I agree. But she’s talking about quality too—mediocre suggest quality, not quantity. I don’t want an employee who knows she could do a better job (not more work) and won’t.
I don’t see Jo-Ann talking about doing below standard quality work. Based on the rest of the quote, I don’t think your interpretation of mediocre matches the intent.
Keep it up, tgt, and do the minimum, contributing to the prevalent American attitude that, guess what, the Chinese and the South Koreans DON’T share. Any recognition that your attitude might be what is contributing to the falling US economic success and standards of living relative to the aforementioned?
First, I never said that I do the minimum. My situation is very different from Jo-Ann’s.
Second, using relative standards of living is silly. The standard of living in the U.S. is still increasing; we’re just farther up the curve so our rate of increase isn’t as much.
Actually, according to statistics that correct for Federal Reserve induced inflation, the American standard of living has NOT increased since about 1992. This does not account for the fact that, in order to keep it there, two workers per household have become the norm, compared to earlier. And does not take into account the more recent effects of the prolonged recession since 2008. While the reasons for this are multifactorial (and in many ways probably NOT in the hands of workers themselves), I emphasize that America’s standing in the matter of education and work ethic has fallen considerably over the last 20 years when compared to other nations. As we were known to say in the 1960s, “you don’t have to be a weatherman to understand which way the wind is blowing.”
Looks like you’re using “staple purchasing power” as “standard of living”. If that’s the case, I agree with you. I’m also going to say that it’s not an important statistic. Quality of life, what you can actually get for your money, has risen greatly in the past 20 years.
Yes, it has risen faster elsewhere, but when you’re going from a lower point, there’s more ability to move up.
This is just stupid. You have no right to expect me to do more than you’re willing to pay me to do.
By golly, you’re RIGHT, TGT!!! As a business owner, I don’t.
That said, if you’re doing the minimum required, you have no right to expect ME, as your employer, to pay you anything more than the rate at which you were hired – assuming, of course, that you keep performing your job at that baseline level. From this point to eternity, inflation be damned. And if, through ridiculous government intervention, your rate of pay intersects poorly with the minimum wage, you’ll be sacked. You’ll probably whine your ass off if I do either, but I won’t lose sleep.
And by the way – as a business owner, I don’t hire people for what they ARE. I already know what they are. I hire based on what they could become, and I reward them if I guessed right. But I don’t pay them for that part until they prove my expectations were correct.
I agree 100%. The situation in the article is someone who is satisified with their job as is.
It’s a matter of corporate culture.
One way is to have everything set by The Rules. A minimum wage is paid, minimum standards are upheld. The employer feels no duty to the employees other than to pay the bare minimum contracted for, the employee feels no duty to the employee other than to do the minimum work contracted for.
Such a system can work if the standards are realistic. Just not very well, but it’s easy to manage with minimally competent management.
Another way is to have more managerial discretion. Human Resources are to be nurtured, both employer and employee go the extra mile when needed. Work becomes fun. Everyone can take pride in it. When times are good, employees get bonuses, when not good, everyone sacrifices equally. It’s not seen as a zero-sum game, where for one side to win, the other must lose.
Basically, treat people like slaves, they’ll work like slaves – only doing the minimum possible, and only when the overseer’s there. They have no ethical obligation to do more.
Treat people like responsible human beings, and there’s an ethical obligation to go well beyond that.
Point well taken, and this turns out to me probably more important in the discussion than doing no more than the minimum for minimum wage. Assuming that such a person would actually respond to such incentives to optimize the “corporate culture.” Some won’t, and feel “entitled” in any case.
When people say they have a life outside of work I assume they’re alcoholics. Strictly speaking though there is nothing unethical about doing the bare minimum as long as you don’t expect promotions, raises or job security and as long as you are providing for any dependents you may have. Mr. Golz is right too in that there is also nothing wrong with replacing an employee if you think you could find somebody who would give you more for the same or less wage. It’s not much different than any other business deal, if either party doesn’t like the price or the terms of the deal than they go their separate ways.
Like with most things though I think moderation is the best policy, I don’t envy the people who get ulcers while working 60 hours a week so they can crank the hedonic treadmill up to 11 but I also look down on the 30 something cashiers who mess up my order at McDonalds.
I think Captain Ron explained it best:
If you work for me and dont show inititive and drive then you are gone. Period. I dont someone who just wants to be a help or a journeymen plumber. If they dont want to be a master plumber some day then they can go work someplace else. And if I send you to school to be a plumber you will fufill the obligation on your contract with me or I will sue you to recover my investment.
So long as the position is for “journeyman attempting to be a master” and not “journeyman”, that sounds fine to me.
Jo-Ann was saying that theresn’t nothing wrong with not desiring to be a master plumber.
This is one of those lovely instances wherein my personally conservative values are at odds with my socially liberal ideals. I’m uncomfortable with the way Ms. Youngblood chose to express herself, but I’m equally uncomfortable with your assumption that she was advocating poor-quality work. The phrase “bare minimum” doesn’t sit well with me, and it would probably tend to correlate with the sort of attitude that produces lazy and negligent performance, yet the actual quotation doesn’t express anything more than the perfectly reasonable sentiment that tgt effectively paraphrased above.
Basically, I see no reason why employees should be expected to act more selflessly than their employers in upholding the terms of their professional relationship. The typical motivation of the employer is to maximize profit, which often means hiring less skilled employees who will work for less money, and paying for work that falls short of what would produce the highest possible quality.
Perhaps I’d be more sympathetic with employers in light of Ms. Youngblood’s comment were it not for the fact that employees like her seem to be exactly the sort of workers that employers want. If companies are being dragged down by “the sixes,” I’d wager that it’s largely the fault of their own hiring practices. If such people do mediocre work because they have no desire for advancement and are happy with the rate of pay they receive at the outset, those people comprise a stable workforce, even if it isn’t the best workforce. Apparently the former is preferable to many employers because it saves them from having to invest at the upper end of their pay scales and from the threat of having to re-fill the position because the former employee was too motivated and talented to stay put.
If I’m right about this, then the unethical attitude is not that of Ms. Youngblood but that of employers who hire people like her precisely because they work less and demonstrate less ambition, but who then expect those same people to work more than they’re required to anyway.
America did not reach its (formerly) lofty position as the greatest economic success the world has ever seen by having workers such as you described. To imagine that there are no social-political-economic consequences to the attitudes that seem prevalent among many young American employees, (and this IS a generational thing), then you and others with your similar opinion are quite mistaken.
He never claimed there were no social-political consequences to those attitudes.
What is your evidence that there previously weren’t mediocre workers in the U.S.?
You’re right that this would be hard to come by. All I can offer is a recollection of the movies of the times, the 1950s compared to the 2000s and 2010s. I submit that the “slacker” archtype was more likely to have been disparaged then, and more likely to be “celebrated” today.
If you follow that logic, there wasn’t any spousal abuse in the 1950s either.
Perhaps I am missing something. OMITTING discussion or commentary about a subject (such as spousal abuse) is not the same as SHOWING, through the type of subject and how it is presented, a certain viewpoint. However, perhaps my inventory of movies from the 1950s is not as complete as that of others. Jack?
Yea, that was a bad example. Let’s go with: there was nobody who liked ultraviolence in the 50s. The violent were disparaged in the 50s, but now we have movies like Kill Bill, Payback, Fight Club (the wrong interpretation, but still), and Boondock Saints.
Really, what you’re seeing is that with the expansion of the entertainment industry (more than just 4 big studios), the types of things on display and the commentary have also increased.
Actually, the casual treatment of spousal abuse in 50’s entertainment is kind of shocking. Husbands and boyfriends belt women fairly frequently. In “Fiorello!”, the 50’s musical, La Guardia’s wife-to-be sings a non-ironic love song saying that she loves him so much that she won’t even be angry when he strikes her! .
This attitude continued into the Sixties: witness John Wayne spanking Maureen O’Hara with a metal tool in “McClintock!” In the 50’s, he just dragged her across Ireland (in “The Quiet Man”). And what the Duke did was always socially acceptable.
Classic conflict theory discussion. I’ve been a business owner (18 years) and an employee (2 years). As a business owner, I want the highest level of productivity from my employees possible, while paying the lowest rates possible (as dictated by market forces). As an employee, I wanted the highest compensation possible with the least amount of effort. In other words, I wanted the highest returns possible for every hour of labour. The only moral obligation, in my book, is following through on the agreed deliverables (or job description as the case may be).