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Want to be a leader? Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will.

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Re: Want to be a leader? Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will.

#51

Post by edw519 »

jarek wrote: post #50
edw519 wrote: post #39

This reminds me of the litmus test my father had in his small business years ago. Every new employee, no matter where they worked, had the same first task: clean the bathroom. Lots of people never made it through the first day. I guess he figured that the best way to have employees who would "wash the dishes when nobody else will" is to only hire those who would.

Maybe it's just my millenial entitlement, but that strikes me as a bad strategy. Unless the business was a cleaning or maintenance company, cleaning the bathroom seems far removed from anything relevant to my work and is in essence busywork. Questions that immediately spring into mind: is this some weird attempt at saving money by having employees do both their job and cleaning? Is this supposed to be some hazing rit…

Did you understand the grandparent?

This had nothing to do with relevance, busywork, hazing, saving money, or evaluating talent.

It had a single purpose: to determine willingness to do an undesirable job. That's it. Which, interestingly, is just as important in a software start-up as it was in my father's business so many years ago.

Re: Want to be a leader? Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will.

#52

Post by jarek »

edw519 wrote: post #51
jarek wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's just my millenial entitlement, but that strikes me as a bad strategy. Unless the business was a cleaning or maintenance company, cleaning the bathroom seems far removed from anything relevant to my work and is in essence busywork. Questions that immediately spring into mind: is this some weird attempt at saving money by having employees do both their job and cleaning? Is this supposed to be some hazing rit…

Did you understand the grandparent? This had nothing to do with relevance, busywork, hazing, saving money, or evaluating talent. It had a single purpose: to determine willingness to do an undesirable job. That's it. Which, interestingly, is just as important in a software start-up as it was in my father's business so many years ago.

I'm much more willing to do an undesirable job related to my position than cleaning.

If you make it clear during interviewing that it's a small company and the employee will be expected to help with cleaning, then there's no problem.

(For the sake of argument; I actually don't mind cleaning all that much but nevertheless it's not high on my list of things to do at work. I'd prefer fixing hairy old VBScript code.)

Re: Want to be a leader? Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will.

#53

Post by brown9-2 »

jarek wrote: post #50
edw519 wrote: post #39

This reminds me of the litmus test my father had in his small business years ago. Every new employee, no matter where they worked, had the same first task: clean the bathroom. Lots of people never made it through the first day. I guess he figured that the best way to have employees who would "wash the dishes when nobody else will" is to only hire those who would.

Maybe it's just my millenial entitlement, but that strikes me as a bad strategy. Unless the business was a cleaning or maintenance company, cleaning the bathroom seems far removed from anything relevant to my work and is in essence busywork. Questions that immediately spring into mind: is this some weird attempt at saving money by having employees do both their job and cleaning? Is this supposed to be some hazing rit…

Sounds to me like the point is to actually test for "Pitching in when it needs to be cleaned?" rather than taking a brand new employee at their word.

Re: Want to be a leader? Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will.

#54

Post by sloak »

guptaneil wrote: post #17
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEO's need to lead; exceptional behavior creates a buzz. This is morale building advice, not socialism. His motive? to show that no one is too good to do the hard stuff. Its a stunt, but its a lesson too. Everybody will get that.

Honest question: Is it still considered a stunt if nobody even knows that he's doing it? From the post, it seemed like he was just taking care of it with no fanfare or mention to the other employees.

Like Macaulay said, "The measure of a man's real character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out."

Re: Want to be a leader? Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will.

#55

Post by stephth »

jrockway wrote: post #6

Nope, now you're the dishwasher. At least in my experience; if you do something that other people don't want to do, you're now the "that thing" guy for life.

It's interesting to me to see this comment getting up-voted (has 12 points as I'm writing this). It gives me a new perspective on what could a seemingly inconsiderate person be thinking of.

Re: Want to be a leader? Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will.

#57

Post by alnayyir »

jarek wrote: post #52
edw519 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you understand the grandparent? This had nothing to do with relevance, busywork, hazing, saving money, or evaluating talent. It had a single purpose: to determine willingness to do an undesirable job. That's it. Which, interestingly, is just as important in a software start-up as it was in my father's business so many years ago.

I'm much more willing to do an undesirable job related to my position than cleaning. If you make it clear during interviewing that it's a small company and the employee will be expected to help with cleaning, then there's no problem. (For the sake of argument; I actually don't mind cleaning all that much but nevertheless it's not high on my list of things to do at work. I'd prefer fixing hairy old VBScript code.)

Relevance is besides the point, you're paid to work. Your job title isn't some kind of license to refuse work you don't want to do.

You keep trying to frame this as being an issue of relevancy when really it's that you're simply not eager enough to get dirty like edw's father wanted out of his people.

You tell me to clean the bathroom on my first day, I'll ask where the scrub and bottle of 409 are.

Now if we're talking months down the line, the dishes need done, and you want me to do them, I'll wonder how my value diminished enough that it wouldn't be more cost effective to hire a cleaner.

Re: Want to be a leader? Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will.

#58

Post by Supermighty »

edw519 wrote: post #51
jarek wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's just my millenial entitlement, but that strikes me as a bad strategy. Unless the business was a cleaning or maintenance company, cleaning the bathroom seems far removed from anything relevant to my work and is in essence busywork. Questions that immediately spring into mind: is this some weird attempt at saving money by having employees do both their job and cleaning? Is this supposed to be some hazing rit…

Did you understand the grandparent? This had nothing to do with relevance, busywork, hazing, saving money, or evaluating talent. It had a single purpose: to determine willingness to do an undesirable job. That's it. Which, interestingly, is just as important in a software start-up as it was in my father's business so many years ago.

I don't want any employees doing jobs they find undesirable. I want employees that enjoy their work. And if they ever find that they don't I want employees that ask for a different internal job, or quite to find a new external job.

Re: Want to be a leader? Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will.

#59

Post by presidentender »

edw519 wrote: post #39

This reminds me of the litmus test my father had in his small business years ago. Every new employee, no matter where they worked, had the same first task: clean the bathroom. Lots of people never made it through the first day. I guess he figured that the best way to have employees who would "wash the dishes when nobody else will" is to only hire those who would.

I washed dishes at a restaurant during high school.

One day, someone defecated in the employee restroom and missed, leaving their waste on the floor behind them.

The first waitress to enter the room thereafter shrieked, then began laughing, and called the rest of us in to go look at it. I assume she used the customer restroom.

We all looked at the offending object in question, and laughed among ourselves. I grabbed a few paper towels, and went to go deal with the situation prejudicially.

After depositing the doodoo in the dumpster out back - you can't flush paper towels - I came back in, washed my hands, and resumed my proper duties as dishwasher.

Minutes later, the boss came into the kitchen, beaming contentedly. He made his way to the employee restroom, opened the door, and asked "Uh, where's the turd?"

As it turned out, the previously mentioned poop had been plastic, and I'd just discarded a five-dollar novelty gag. Laughs were had once again.

One of the waitresses and the boss both mentioned to me that I was "like, the best employee ever" because I was willing to take the initiative to deal with a nasty situation. I'd like to say that this has been borne out by my professional performance since then, particularly as it stands relative to that of my coworkers from that period.

The best part was that the boss had borrowed the plastic fecal matter from a friend of his and had to go fish it out of the dumpster to avoid buying a new one.

Re: Want to be a leader? Wash the Dishes When Nobody Else Will.

#60

Post by sudont »

presidentender wrote: post #59
edw519 wrote: post #39

This reminds me of the litmus test my father had in his small business years ago. Every new employee, no matter where they worked, had the same first task: clean the bathroom. Lots of people never made it through the first day. I guess he figured that the best way to have employees who would "wash the dishes when nobody else will" is to only hire those who would.

I washed dishes at a restaurant during high school. One day, someone defecated in the employee restroom and missed, leaving their waste on the floor behind them. The first waitress to enter the room thereafter shrieked, then began laughing, and called the rest of us in to go look at it. I assume she used the customer restroom. We all looked at the offending object in question, and laughed among ourselves. I grabbed a…

You couldn't tell it was plastic? Must have been really good quality.

I've known quite a few people who worked in gas stations and other places where they had to clean the rest rooms. If there was shit, it was generally either sprayed everywhere or rubbed on the walls. I'm pretty sure they'd appreciate the politeness of a single fecal clump. As this was after the advent of cell phone cameras, I've seen the evidence. One single-person bathroom's floor was almost half-covered in feces.

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