Under promise, over deliver.

“Never leave a job you’re happy in for a promotion”

From an ex-head of department in a school I worked in briefly. He hated the school and missed his old job.

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a **** big television, Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin can openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of **** fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the **** you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing **** junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, ****-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself. Choose your future. Choose life . . . But why would I want to do a thing like that?

Actually, sounds okay. Sign me up!

Mine was given to me at university by a tutor who called it reverse Ockham’s razor. “Don’t unnecessarily duplicate entities”. Everyone around you will be trying to do the same things in lots of different ways, try to be the person who can see past that and choose the simple solution.

If a geriatric patient gives you a Malteaser out of the packet don’t eat it.

I guess a good one for me at work was.

It takes longer to put your breathing apparatus on than it does to take it off

Which means put it on en route to a job as if you get there and don’t need it its no great shakes but if you arrive without it on and someone is screaming at the window you waste time

“Never presume”

“Bury your dead quickly”

8)

Under promise, over deliver.

Whenever I hear that I think

“Aim low, achieve your goals.”

from one of the boys on here:

“don’t put your finger where you wouldn’t put your c*ck”

also

“if you spend more, folk will moan – if you don’t deliver, folk will remember”

If you need something from your boss. Ask a fatty after lunch, ask a smoker after a fag, you get the gist

“don’t put your finger where you wouldn’t put your c*ck”

This could make picking your nose somewhat problematic. 😯

On the subject of getting a new job (needs Scottish accent):
“If you don’t arrive when you arrive, you never arrive at all”.

“Aim low, achieve your goals.”

Totally different.

Mine’s about how you deal with others, especially your clients or line manager(s). Yours is about personal achievement (or lack of, in a Homer Simpson kind of way).

The one thing that frustrates those that you work with is being let down. The one thing that delights is getting more that they bargained for. Very often by negotiating the initial expectation the level of delivery you planned all along can go from satisfactory or even unacceptable to exemplary. IMO one of the worst things you can have at work is a boss who is a yes man/woman to their bosses.It means the pressure is piled on try and deliver the unachievable and when you kill yourself to get close your efforts are met with disappointment. A little negotiating at the start by your manager can make their team look like stars.

“never get off the boat!”

Start every project meeting with a reminder that “why we can’t” is an unacceptable answer to challenging parts of a project, and “how we can” is the only one that will be accepted.

“Always remember your client pays you and the whole operation’s wages so work to meet their needs”

muppetWrangler – Member
Nobody ever gets to the end of their life wishing they’d spent more time at work.

I agree and subscribe to this although I heard it as “no-one ever had ‘I wish I had spent more time in the office’ on their gravestone.” Same difference.

Another good one that has been alluded to already and an ex-line manager of mine told me was that I should leave off replying to some emails for 24 hours/overnight.

This has served me well as i used to just bash out an angry email and send it and this would raise all kinds of sh*tstorms. It’s much easier to reply with a cool head.

And finally, one that Dilbert taught me but is a universal truth. If you ignore something long enough it will go away.

The number of times that someone is desperate for some info/response/report etc. You ignore it for 24/48 hours and hey presto, they’ve resolved it another way.

“Keep moving and always have something in your hand”

Have your “**** you” money.

3 months salary in reserve, so if you don’t like it, you say “**** you” and leave.

Plenty of time to get more work before things are tight.

If you look up keep your mouth shut; my father teaching me to milk cows.

And finally, one that Dilbert taught me but is a universal truth. If you ignore something long enough it will go away.

Yep, I live by that one also 😀

1. Write the angry email at the end of the day and save it in your drafts, come back in tomorrow and if you still feel the same way, send it. Or better still, go and have a face to face chat instead

2. It’s only a job (from my GP when signing me off with stress – which I’d essentially brought on myself by expecting too much pleasure from work)

3. Why do you stay in Marketing if you don’t like it? I’ve not taken that advice yet, still working on finding the alternative 🙂

Probably why I never asked my first boss for anything, he was a w***er.

The number of times that someone is desperate for some info/response/report etc. You ignore it for 24/48 hours and hey presto, they’ve resolved it another way.

This is getting worse with increasing modes of communication. We have phone calls, emails, channels – all sorts of different ways of bothering communicating with your colleagues.

I swear some people prepare loads of responses in different tabs and then send them all at once. But who would do a thing like that?

90% of customers are thieves so never trust them.

From a former bikeshop owner I used to work for. Not great advice, but helpful insofar as it cemented in my mind what I already knew. He was a retarded c***.

The number of times that someone is desperate for some info/response/report etc. You ignore it for 24/48 hours and hey presto, they’ve resolved it another way.

This. I used to work for a guy who would ask for all sorts of reports and analysis or other pieces of work and would almost immediately forget that he’d asked for them. It always seemed a great idea to him in the moment.
After working for him for about four years and presenting him with innumerable bits of work to which he would invariably reply “Did I ask you to do that ? I don’t really need it”, we instituted a rule ( with his agreement) that he needed to ask me three times on three separate occasions before I would actually do any of these things.

i was asked this question in my last job interview funnily enough.

couldn’t think of anything, having been self-employed for the 8 years previous.

still got the job. boss later told me that i’d given a crap interview but the practical part of the process made up for it 😆

My grandfather told me to always fight fire with fire.

Perhaps that’s why he got thrown out of the fire service…

Baduummm tish!

“Early is on time, on time is late, late is no good to me…”

My parting words to an ex-employee. I got sick of him rolling in at 2-minutes past nine and going to make himself a brew!

My old Contracts Manager;-
“We all have priorities in life, yours aren’t necessarily mine!”

The same man;-
“We all make mistakes. When you do, come and tell me straight away, I will respect you for that, take the piss out of you for a week and we will then move on. Try and cover it up and I guarantee it will escalate, cost a fekin fortune to sort out and you will be branded with it for life!”
I didn’t listen obviously and there is now a ‘famous’ incident that follows me around!!

“don’t put your finger where you wouldn’t put your c*ck”

I bet you have skiddy underpants.

“Only ever work somewhere for as long as you’re learning something”

If only I’d realised the importance of this, I’d have bettered myself.

Never say “Umm” “Err” “Aaah” or any other verbal tic which denotes hesitation or uncertainty.
These can completely shatter your projected illusion of competency.

In meetings, always have a strategy to buy yourself 30 seconds thinking time without looking hesitant , uncertain or flustered before answering a difficult, unexpected question.
Used to work with a bloke who would always carry a clean white cotton hankie in his right trouser pocket. When pounced on in the meeting he would always go through the same routine.
“Well…” he would say and then produce the hanky with a flourish, take off his specs, give the lenses a quick polish, hold them up to the light to check for smears, replace them on his face and then answer the question whilst putting the hanky back in his pocket…..having bought himself 20 – 30 seconds to think about the answer which is an eternity in these situations. It was so smooth and well rehearsed that nobody ever challenged him on it.

My version of this is my standard answer of “It depends….”…2 seconds…3 seconds….4 Seconds….”What do you mean it depends? Depends on what?” 9….10…11… “Well, it could be….” Buys me a good 10 seconds of pure thinking time after which I conduct the rest of the thought process verbally whilst seeming to provide an answer without any real hesitation.

I also like Richard Bransons advice:

“Look after your staff first, your customers second, and your share holders last, that way everyone’s happy”

Could so easily be applied to the company I work for, and make a massive difference.

I don’t think I have received any particularly special wisdom that hasn’t been covered above. And there are some excellent pieces of advice here.

There are three that I share if asked:

1. Avoid future surprises – if that means some more effort now, then don’t kick the can down the road. Comes from nearly 15 years working as a lawyer (but can still be handy even now).

2. Always go “to” a job, never leave “from” a job – don’t wait until you’re bitter and hate it. Life’s too short and it clouds your judgement.

3. Change doesn’t happen to other people – when organisations make changes that affect people, too often we don’t notice if it impacts others and not us and, when it impacts us, we act as if it’s a surprise. Change is a constant – be prepared to move with it.

Work smart, not hard.

1. Never assume. To assume makes and ass of ‘u’ and ‘me’.

2. It’s all just a big game.

I like the last one – just not sure I want to play anymore.

Never say “Umm” “Err” “Aaah” or any other verbal tic which denotes hesitation or uncertainty.

These can completely shatter your projected illusion of competency.

Depends what you do for a living. As a creative I tend to find that I’m half expected to, when asked something, go ‘hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm, scratch my chin, then stare off into the middle distance. My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought, cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives….

[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37v-6Zs5T10[/video]

In reality I’m probably just thinking about norks. Or pies. 😀

Or squeezing a fart out?

Given by a senior director when he could see how stressed out I was at meeting a deadline for a high-profile project, which he was in charge of, ‘Stop worrying, it’s only work. Worse things happen in life than not meeting deadlines’. Sadly he’s not here now, and seems to have been replaced by people who take the opposite view 🙁

You’ve only go to know enough to know you know f*** all.