Work Like You Own The Place
By: Lindsay Brown
Tags: Life Lessons, Work, Careers, Social Media, Small Business

Work Like You Own The Place

My boss told me my work wasn’t good enough. I cried, then got on with it and tried again

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

I have always had a strong work ethic. I’m not bragging here, just stating the facts. I’ll write until 2 or 3 in the morning some days to ensure I’m meeting my deadlines.

Lately, however, I’m finding it challenging to focus. Writing that last sentence took me an hour because I was distracted by my friend’s Facebook statuses. I’m sort of a mess right now. I can’t nail down the various streams of thoughts that wander through my head. I’m finding it difficult to make a metaphor that doesn’t sound hinky as hell.

I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Except I do.

We are right back where we started as far as the health crisis goes. Case counts are on the rise here in Alberta, Canada, again, and I am getting antsy. My husband has been on Employment Insurance for months now. I’m finding it increasingly difficult to find freelancing work. Money is tight.

It’s all I can think about. I spent all day today applying for jobs. Then after my eyes began crossing from looking at a computer screen all day, I switched to my mobile.

There was a text message from my boss. She owns a local diner in my city, and I do content creation for her social media accounts — usually daily meal specials, menu design, that sort of thing.

Worst luck, they had to close down for a few days to retile their cooking line’s floor. Although it may not sound like much, it’s a difficult thing to do — closing one’s doors — after having been shut down from COVID for the past three months. They had just reopened and two weeks later discovered these issues with their flooring.

So she asked me to write up a post for Facebook explaining that they would need to remain closed for another day due to delays in the process. She asked me to portray that they were trying to get back up and running but were unable to at this time. “Pull some heartstrings, so I’m busy when we do open.” She said.

Yeah, yeah, sure, I thought. I can do that in my sleep, no biggie.

So I wrote this:

We have been trying our hardest to get back up and running as soon as possible. However, because we cook everything from scratch and are unable to hook up any of our equipment for another day, we, unfortunately, will not be ready to open back up tomorrow. We do apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Thank you for your understanding.

If that’s my idea at pulling at heartstrings, then I must be one cold son of a gun. This was perhaps the sorriest excuse for work that I have ever tried to pull off. And I knew it. Yet, I still sent it to my boss for review. Despicable. I was lazy and didn’t want to put in the brainpower. I wasn’t thinking like an owner. If this were my business, is that what I would have written to my customers to explain the situation?

“No. This isn’t going to work for me,” Was my boss’s reaction when I sent it over. She said it in more delicate terms, though.

I am very fortunate to have the boss I do in this job because we are also good friends. Occasionally we get a bit snippy with one another when emotions get high, or there is stress in the air, but for the most part, I feel we work well together. However, she is still my boss. She pays me for my services.

She rarely tells me that she doesn’t like my work. So this stung.

What?! Don’t you appreciate this mediocre piece of crap that’s not hitting even one of the marks you asked for? How dare you! That was my first reaction. I sulked for about a minute then looked back over our last few text messages about the issues going on in the diner’s kitchen.

We talked about revisions to the post, “how about adding this here” or “what if we took that part away,” I eventually interrupted her.

“You know what, I think I missed the mark on this one. Just let me try again. I’ll send you a new post to review in a couple of minutes.”

So I wrote the blurb up again, except this time, I had my client’s feelings in mind. When you work as a content creator for a small business like this one, it is so important to speak in the business’s voice. In this case, the owner’s voice.

She is the type of restaurant owner who is on the line cooking every lunch rush and makes the time to go out into the restaurant to visit with the regulars when here is a break in the lineup. I needed to make this post straight from her heart. She didn’t like being closed any more than her loyal customers did.

I sent her the new article, and she loved it. I used a real photo she had sent me the day before, so customers could truly understand the situation.

Screenshot by Author

I apologized for the shotty first try. She said it was okay, and that we all need a kick in the ass sometimes.

I’ve always had a good work ethic because I’ve always thought like a boss.

Whether I was working on a greasy line at Kentucky Fried Chicken or housekeeping at a dingy hotel in the heart of Victoria, B.C., I’ve always had the mentality that the company I worked for was my company.

Sure there were a few places where the owners treated me like garbage, during which I didn’t think like a boss because those guys could screw themselves. But if I enjoyed my job and the people I worked for, I would take on the responsibility to do whatever it took to help grow the business.

Thinking like a boss has helped me move up in business.

This is not to say that privilege and circumstance did not contribute to my luck, but having a strong work ethic helps push one along as well. In every job my husband has ever worked, he always tells his managers/employers that he’s going to take their position.

One might think that this is too forward of a statement; however, it’s never backfired on him yet. Good employers love to hear this sentiment. It means that their workers are going to work as hard as they do for the company.

Thinking like a boss has taught me responsibility, and what accountability truly means.

Today I wasn’t thinking like a boss, and it could have potentially hurt my employer’s business. My business. It could have lost me my job. In these challenging times, many small business owners heavily rely on their social media presence to get the word out about their specials and daily affairs.

If I fall short on the content I am creating, this business could lose patrons. Then, I could be out of a job. Who needs a content creator who isn’t producing good enough content?

It’s not only about thinking like a boss but acting like one too.

I may be tired at the end of a long day pitching articles to editors and scouring freelancing job boards, but that isn’t my boss’s problem. She is hiring me to do a job and an excellent job at that.

From now on, I’ll remember to think like a boss and make sure I’m acting like one too.