Work ethics matter

Years ago my adoptive father told me something that has stuck with me to this day. He said, “son, if something is worth doing, it is worth doing right the first time”. The point of that is to say if you do a sloppy job or a bad job the first time then you will probably have to go back and repeat it until you get it right.

That is what I want to talk about. “Getting it right” What exactly does that mean? It means that whatever you do, approach it with the attitude of doing it correctly. Take all the necessary steps to complete the job correctly. In other words, take pride in the finished product. When someone comes along after you are done, how is that job or task going to reflect on you? Will someone think, “wow, he did a great job on finishing this” or “ wow, he did a half assed job on this and someone is going to have to do it all over again”.

If you are going to commit to doing a thing, take pride in doing it right the first time. This applies to small tasks as well as big jobs. The sum total of your actions will establish your work ethic and how people think of you. This applies to family life, relationships, job performance and sports endeavours. Maybe I am of the “older” generation and a good work ethic was instilled in us. Our parents, grandparents, relatives or mentors took us aside and trained us to do our very best we could when we take on a task.

I seem to be surrounded by people who just want to skate by. They want to get paid but they only want to do the bare minimum effort and spend a majority of their time watching movies and sports on their phones and tablets. I work two jobs and I have several people who come to mind. Both of these people make very little effort to do their jobs. Jobs that they are getting paid to perform. One person keeps telling me that I take the job too seriously. My response to that is that the job still has to get done.

Some would say that they feel as if they are not getting paid very much, so why put in maximum effort. Here is what I think. If you agree to do the job for whatever amount of pay, you should be willing to DO THE JOB RIGHT. If you are not willing to do the job then do not accept it. Go find something else to do. Something that you are happy with.

When you provide insufficient effort in getting a task completed that means someone else will have to go behind you and do it right. How would you like to buy an airline ticket and expect to get from point A to point B safely? I think all of us would like to…