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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.

#131

Post by dchs »

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…

Awesome story - well played! :)

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

#132

Post by DougBTX »

jarek wrote: post #87
scott_s wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's Friday evening. You and your team will be at the office through the weekend to finish a release. The toilet backed up, spilling onto the bathroom floor. The building's cleaning staff will not be around until Monday, and there is no protocol for emergencies. Will you clean the bathroom? What I have done is contrive a plausible scenario where cleaning the bathroom is something that just has to get done in order fo…

> Will you clean the bathroom? Yes. (Though I better be getting paid overtime for that weekend work if the schedule slip isn't the dev team's fault.) There is a large difference between cleaning a bathroom in an emergency on a Friday evening and cleaning a bathroom because the boss wants to test you on a Monday morning. Are you assuming that just because someone cleaned it when their boss forced them to as condition…

> Yes.

Honestly, I'm sure you'd be able to find an excuse why it would be better to leave it until Monday fore someone else to do.

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

#133

Post by OllieJones »

Right on.

Also, clean up the bathrooms when somebody's coming for an interview. Wipe the floor under the urinals and around the crappers. Why make a potential co-worker wonder whether working with you is worth living in filth?

But, it's also good leadership to put up a note saying "There's a rumor going around that this kitchen (or bathroom) is magic, and cleans itself. It's false! false! Please do your part!"

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

#134

Post by clistctrl »

joe_the_user wrote: post #78
grellas wrote: post #48

Want to be a great leader? Work hard to develop extraordinary skills. Become an independent thinker and have the courage to follow your ideas. Show respect to others and never think more highly of yourself than you ought. Avoid bad habits of sloth, dissipation, dishonesty, and other qualities that would cause others to lose respect for you. Set goals that challenge you to do your best and follow diligently after them…

"That man might never make a mark in the broader society but I could see he would be a fine leader wherever his life circumstances took him." Ah the leadership question... Being a few years past high school, it's interesting to look at many people who seemed like leaders but never made it. Some times it was life-circumstances. But I think think there is also a too-great a willingness to merely work hard at what prese…

"willing to delegate"

There is so much to be said here. When I first had the idea for the project i'm on now I decided to find someone to help me with the business tasks, and I found another person who knew the domain better then me. It took a few months, but eventually I found them. Then something weird happened. We were all in the same room, I had brought them both there because I knew they were the best! however I somehow couldn't allow myself to let them do the things they needed to do. For some reason, I still knew more than my domain expert, I was going to make better business decisions than my business guy. The meeting was great for meeting everyone, but in terms of progress none was made.

Then they found my weak spot. We went out for lunch at a bar, and for some reason never left the bar. After many beers, I had this drunken vision that I was doing things wrong! So I went home, and said to myself hey i'm the tech guy, i'm just going to worry about the tech, and let these guys do the things they need to do. Thats when the progress ball rolled down the hill.

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

#135

Post by mcherm »

jarek wrote: post #61
alnayyir wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 talki…

I am not eager to clean bathrooms on my first day as a software developer. Relevance to my job title, which is important to me for both self-fulfillment and career management reasons, is a big part of why. I am eager to create software, and I understand this includes the mentally dirty parts. If I was eager to get physically dirty I'd go and make more money for an easier job at the tar sands. You want someone who wil…

This whole thread strongly convinces me that this approach was an excellent one. I'm sorry, Jarek: you may be an excellent software developer, but I'd rather hire someone else. Because in my OWN years as a software developer I have found that my willingness to do whatever needed doing has made as much difference as my skill at writing and maintaining difficult programs. Sure, most other people didn't have the skills to do the latter. But most people didn't have the WILL to do the former, and both have made a huge difference for one reason or another.

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

#136

Post by mcherm »

bugsy wrote: post #109

When I am a guest at someone's house I always stay and help clean up, and wash dishes. Love to do my share. But it is foolish to be doing janitorial duties at work. A situation a few years ago will serve as an example. As an expert, my time was being billed out to clients at $150/hr and I was getting paid $50 of that. The company did not want to hire more engineers so I was working 60-100 billable hours every week, w…

Wrong. Imagine the economy took a downturn and the company was having trouble finding placements for their consultants. Imagine that they decided to hang onto the employees even though they didn't have billable work for them (try hard: you may sprain your imagination). Imagine that the company's finances were in trouble over this, so they stopped the janitorial service. And then they asked you to take out the trash and clean the fridge.

THAT is when it would be appropriate, and a team player would pitch in. Abusing employees is abuse whether it's excessive billable hours or excessive fridge-cleaning.

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

#137

Post by jasonlotito »

rimantas wrote: post #125
jasonlotito wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe it's just my millenial entitlement, but that strikes me as a bad strategy. I don't know if has anything to do with your "millenial" (seriously, you use this word to describe yourself?) entitlement, but it's not a bad strategy for both you or the company. You don't want to work for a company like that, and they don't want employees like you. Extrapolate that into numerous other "First Day/First Week/First Mont…

Strategy is sound in what? In hiring people willing to clean bathrooms?

Zappos employs the same strategy by offering up money for someone to leave. People who take the money aren't the type of person they want at Zappos. They won't fit in.

The military does this as well. Basic training is more than just training. If you can't get through basic training, you aren't the type of person that will work out in the military.

As for cleaning the bathroom: It's not cleaning the bathroom. It's shared ownership in the upkeep, presentation, and workings of the company. It's a small company, so everyone knows everyone I imagine. Someone not willing to clean the bathroom would probably not fit into the company.

You seem stuck on the fact that it's cleaning a bathroom.

What about committing code the first day you're on the job? Being forced to take ownership. What about being handed a computer and being told to put it together?

Lots of companies have rituals their first day. Things the new guy does that essentially boils down to the final test to see if they'll belong. If they'll fit in.

Don't make the assumption that the strategy is only cleaning a bathroom. Don't assume you have to clean a bathroom.

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

#138

Post by mcherm »

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.

> if you do something that other people don't want to do, you're now the "that thing" guy for life.

There are ways to manage your career to avoid this. My favorite is to be quite up-front about it: tell my manager that I'll take on the urgent/bugfix team role for a couple of months because it's in terrible shape, but that I really don't want to be there any longer, and I want to train my successor around the time it starts functioning well again.

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

#139

Post by jarek »

mcherm wrote: post #135
jarek wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not eager to clean bathrooms on my first day as a software developer. Relevance to my job title, which is important to me for both self-fulfillment and career management reasons, is a big part of why. I am eager to create software, and I understand this includes the mentally dirty parts. If I was eager to get physically dirty I'd go and make more money for an easier job at the tar sands. You want someone who wil…

This whole thread strongly convinces me that this approach was an excellent one. I'm sorry, Jarek: you may be an excellent software developer, but I'd rather hire someone else. Because in my OWN years as a software developer I have found that my willingness to do whatever needed doing has made as much difference as my skill at writing and maintaining difficult programs. Sure, most other people didn't have the skills…

That's fair enough. That's your decision. I would rather work for someone else. The original test is a false indicator with only mild correlation to any characteristic useful in a professional work setting and plenty of room for false positives.

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

#140

Post by jai_vasanthan »

Great article. In a startup environment, you should always see people taking responsibility whenever there is a crisis. They inspire the people around them to come up with solutions for the pressing issues.

If you see someone who doesn't take responsibility and is always trying to run from it, or is always whining and never a part of the solution. Fire Them. Those who take responsibilities and are atleast willing to be part of the solution have the DNA to be in the startup culture.

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