This past week I was wrapping up a day in the office and getting ready to head out. As I walked down the hall, I heard a coworker say – quite loudly – that she didn\u2019t know what her purpose at work was anymore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
a) that is a worrying thing to hear<\/p>\n\n\n\n
b) that\u2019s not the kind of thing you say if you want to keep your job<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I stopped and talked to her about what she said and tried to commiserate. A new vendor had been hired to help her with her job – but then her boss had given said vendor full control over most of what she had been doing. It was a bad decision and had left my co-worker blindsided.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t have a lot to offer then, but I let her know I was thinking about her. Then, I shunted this problem – how to help a purposeless colleague – to the back of my head and let my marvelous subconscious mull things over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just before I went to bed, I got out a small piece of paper and a pen to take notes, then checked in on my subconscious to see what it had come up with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like automatic writing, I scribbled down several ideas for her – then went to bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day, I fleshed these scribbled notes out to a full and well organized document – then asked her to stop by my office when she had a few minutes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she got there, I apologized for not being more helpful the day before, but that I had some ideas that might help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I went over each point with plans and examples and she started to light up as the wheels began to turn. By the time we got done with the document she was smiling and beaming. I emailed the document to her and told her in the note that she could reach out to me if she needed help getting started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today, while she was cleaning up her emails, she wrote me back and thanked me again for taking the time to share the suggestions. She said that she left that brief meeting feeling inspired. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m not her boss and I wasn\u2019t able to help directly, but I gave a damn and tried to help – which is more than her boss did. It\u2019s always a gamble to offer unsolicited advice, but this time it worked and I think I really had a positive impact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t much – just some notes and encouragement – but it was a good starting point for a new purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This past week I was wrapping up a day in the office and getting ready to head out. As I walked down the hall, I heard a coworker say – quite loudly – that she didn\u2019t know what her purpose at work was anymore. a) that is a worrying thing to hear b) that\u2019s not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3377"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3378,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3377\/revisions\/3378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thunderofwade.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}