Work Hard and How

Hello, Welcome to my blog. My name is Walton (Walt).

Today I will share you my secret on how to be a noticeably hard working productive co-worker. So you got hired at a new job, would you like to stand out from the rest of the crowd? I got my first job when I was 17 years old. It was at a grocery store department called Safeway. My first job was as a grocery bagger or known for the title "courtesy clerk". Anyway, at my first job, I was probably one of the laziest employees you could ever see in a workplace.

I only worked there because I was forced to my parents, due to lack of productiveness and a highly lazy lifestyle. All I did was go to school because I had to and go home and play video games all night and sleep all day. When I got my second job around my 20's, was when I started to observe myself. Before observing myself or seeing myself and the way I behaved, I used to want badly to talk back to rude customers, this was before I was 18 years old. I had a close call and could have easily lost my job altogether. I had to make a change. So I thought to myself, "What can I do to stand out in the crowd?".

This is was I did. I pictured or imagined that I had multiple managers all around the store only watching me and no one else. I had to do this for some reasons. One reason is if I trick myself into thinking that I have multiple managers observing my every move and making sure I was always working no matter what time of the day it was and not be distracted or slack off. I wanted to be productive, not just sometimes, but all the time I was being viewed.

A few months more into this new way of working, I started getting rewards for hard work and even some awesome compliments from customers, which did not go unnoticed. One time I had three customer compliments in one day! Can you believe that? I wanted to make sure all my customers were happy. Even if I was busy working on something, I made sure that if a customer were to want or look like they need help finding something, I would go that extra mile to let them know I was there to help them with any questions about where to locate items in the store for example.

I also knew that being an honest employee would help others out a huge deal. For instance, I've had a couple occasions where customers left their items in their grocery carts like wallets, purses, cell phones, or anything that they wouldn't want to leave behind. I would quickly take the item and would take the item to the customer service desk where the lost and found side would hold the item until someone would ask if they have seen any item they have left at a store to get it back. Many times my name was mentioned after the customer or customers got their items back when he or she would ask who they could thank for returning the item to them.

There was once a huge purse, it must have been filled with a bundle of money, I wasn't sure, but I knew this had to be returned as soon as possible before someone could go off with it and take what does not belong to them. The customer returned to the store and asked the store clerk at the customer service desk if anyone has reported a lost purse and to please give it back. My name was mentioned and the customer wanted to give me a $20 bill. I said, "I cannot take tips, sorry." The customer insisted that I take the bill because it was not a tip, but a reward.

Anyway, back to the productive co-worker part of the story. My manager always saw me working every time my manager walked by, he would see me working and not wasting time or slacking off. I learned to discipline myself and it worked. I started getting employee of the month multiple times and the manager trusted me and would let me pick and choose what I wanted to work on a lot of times and some employees did not like me. I didn't consider myself to be the best employee, I just wanted to do my job and do what I was supposed to do. I wanted to take my job seriously and have fun too.