Are You Willing To Do the Work No One Wants To Do?

When it comes down to the real deal, when the rubber hits the road, when it’s shape up or ship out (OK, OK … ), are you willing to put in the hard work? Not only the hard work, but the nasty work, the grunt work, the backroom, late-night, thankless work? That’s the hard stuff. Showing up with a cocktail and waving to the crowd is one thing. Putting your cocktail next to the laptop and getting instructions on how to audit the auction items at the end of the night is another.

Step Up or Step Aside

I have pretty close to zero tolerance for those who don’t want to actually do the work. There are those who just want to come up with the big ideas, but aren’t interested in execution. Gee, thanks. Let me go do the work to make your idea possibly work.

It’s amazing how quickly perspective can shift with only a simple table between you. Ten minutes prior you were sipping wine next to someone but now that you’re behind the checkout table and handling their invoices you’ve become a service slave. “Oh, why don’t I have a second copy of this invoice?” They forget, no, sorry, they don’t even realize, that 10 minutes ago you had the same amount of training. Now I have 8 more minutes of training than you do. I’m a volunteer. The only difference between me and the person on the other side of the table is that I said yes to the last-minute call for checkout help. I said I would help. I said I would do my part for the school. I missed part of the big event so that I could check out you and your husband.

Am I looking for a Thank You? Sure, it’d be nice. But even better? Step on over to the other side of the table.

• “But I don’t have any training?”
• “Welcome to volunteering, none of us do. Let me show you how the auditing process works, it only takes 8 minutes.”
• “But … “

But nothing. Do you do your part? Not all the time, just sometimes, once in a while. Even once. Try it. Is it easy? Maybe not. Maybe. See what happens.  Try the work you don’t want to do. Try the work no one wants to do. See how you like it. See how it makes you feel. See how it changes your perspective. Just see what happens.