It’s not my job

I was sitting at our local Panera last week at a booth right next to the soft drinks. It’s not really a clutch spot for an uninterrupted lunch, but if I hadn’t been there I wouldn’t have noticed a very interesting trend. There is a floor mat right under the drinks, and the corners kept getting kicked up by the customers. Every couple minutes an employee that walked by would reach down and flip the corner back down. This probably happened three times while we sat there.

The next time it was kicked up, a manager was the next employee to walk by, he reached down and pulled the mat back towards him to flatten it out, and the rest of the time we were there, it didn’t get kicked up again.

After I saw the manager react differently to the situation, it brought to my mind a post on Brains on Fire blog, “How well do you do not my job“.  In their excellent post, it brings up the question, how well do you do the things that aren’t explicitly “your” job, i.e. out of your job description.  At Panera it was the manager who did “not my job” well.  I’d venture to say that in todays world, companies that are full of people who act, even when it is not within their official job to act will come out ahead of those who don’t.  People who work with this mindset will in most cases care for the customer better.

Who is it at your company?  Is it you?

Check out their post, have it rock your world.

Have a great day.