Seinfeld gets a lot of credit for pop culture references, but it's rare that we admit how well Larry David nailed office life.
There's the brilliant scene where Kramer gets fired from the job he doesn't even work at.
There's the entire sage of Elaine and her comically insane boss, J Peterman.
And then there's George. Wonderful George, who turns work avoidance into an art.
He sleeps under his desk.
He leaves his car at the office to pretend he's in early and works late.
He acts annoyed all the time, to pretend he's busy (one of my favorites. It reminded me of the days I'd carry around a clipboard because it made people think you had a managerial task. Another trick in that vein is to always walk fast, even if it's just to go to the bathroom or grab a smoke break. Walking fast is not only good cardio for you, it suggest you're going somewhere, and that's not just a metaphor.
My personal favorite was the episode with the Penske file.
George interviews with a manager about to leave on vacation. The manager is vague about whether George has the job, so George decides to fake it. He shows up to work, takes an office, and spends the day looking at an enormous file for the Penske account.
When the boss returns, George finds out that he actually was hired, but his failure to do any work causes the boss to fire him.
And that's what I want to talk to you about, because there's a lot more George in the current workplace than I'm comfortable with.
This isn't going to be a rant about Gen Y, because the behavior goes through all generations. As a recruiter, I hear plenty of sob stories about companies that don't train, don't motivate, and who sell a different bill of goods to employees than the reality of the working solution.
Do you know what I've never heard?
I've never heard any employee ever complain that they were overtrained. I've never heard someone admit that they were given all of the tools, time, and salary they wanted, but their lack of ability to take advantage of the situation was the single greatest reason they failed to succeed.
Is that possible? If it isn't possible, or even likely, then what we have is bad expectations of our responsibility to an employer, and inflated views of our own culpability in our employment situation. And we all have culpability.
So let me start off.
The last two jobs I held, I failed to maximize the potential offered me by the company. The companies were not perfect. They didn't have perfect people or perfect systems, but they did offer a framework that had I chosen to, I could have been more successful than I was.
This is not to say I was a failure, but in leaving both companies, it's only fair to say that they provided an opportunity to me, and took on the risk of hiring me. In both cases, one more than the other, I made them more money than I cost them. In fact, in my last job, I was a bright young star that won a trip to Hawaii in my first full year. I still could have done better.
It was the recognition, after winning that trip, that I had more to offer than my current position that led me to start my own firm, but it's only fair to say that the company met their end of the bargain.
Maybe it's maturity, and maybe it's simply an entreprenuerial spirit, but when I hire, or hire for clients, I want someone who understands where they failed in their last jobs. I want to hire someone who is making a career move not because they can't succeed at a company, but rather because they can make a bigger impact at the new company.
George Costanza was funny, because he was a loser who couldn't hold down a job. We laughed at his foibles and wondered how much we could get away with ourselves. And we laughed at the too close for comfort depictions of work life. In real life, George-like behavior isn't funny. Can you be honest with yourself about your George-like habits, both now and in the past?
