Other than making sure to get even more work sent your way, is there anything positive to gain by it?
18 replies (most recent on top)
The more you volunteer for things, the more you will attract envy from co-workers (maybe even your manager if they are not all that great) and be back stabbed. Envy leads to negative comments, disparagement and 360 feedback given to you by those envious co-workers. WF never cuts the slack- the slack cuts the high performers- think about it. Why attract the ire?
If you want to contribute and work hard, go to a Tech company or a start up.
Also, the new stack ranking is not conducive to volunteering for more work- it's all political, not merit based.
He who polishes the sausage well, lives to polish the sausage another day.
What do you do though when you ask for work, you say you have downtime, you want to increase your skills, and despite being told "I've got some ideas for things for you to do" or "we'll get you some work", and then nothing happens? Sometimes you get noticed for the work you do in one job, and get asked to apply, and get hired into a new role, where you continue to try to do well, only to go through their 7 directs project where you get a new manager, and over time, you get less and less to do. So then you start thinking maybe it's time to move on, but wait, you can't since you aren't in a hub location. That's ok though, at least you still have a telecommuting agreement so you get to work from home. Uh oh, everyone is being told they are going to make everyone return to office, even those who had formal agreements. Don't worry your boss assures you, we'll make sure you can continue working from home. We aren't going to found out how to do that though, our department is following the "wait and see" approach, so at some point we'll find out what the official process is for requesting exceptions. Oh, but now Mary Katherine and HR say no exceptions for anyone, so please return, even though you aren't co-located with anyone remotely connected with our group.
Sometimes the hard work doesn't matter. Sometimes trying to find opportunities for additional work is ignored. Sometimes you ask about applying for the position of someone who just left the team, and instead the position isn't posted, and it goes to someone else on a different team who is being moved as an "internal transfer". That internal transfer is located where most of the rest of the team is. Writing on the wall says that maybe they are more interested in people who are onsite, and it isn't always about actual performance.
In order to volunteer for projects, you have to know about them, and sometimes when you find out about one, and express interest, it still goes to someone else. My location isn't a hot bed of job opportunities. I originally took a job at Wells because I thought it offered more advancement opportunities.
I have skills that aren't being utilized, but I also am willing to learn new ones. I like the people I work with, have had good performance reviews, but can't shake the feeling that my manager wouldn't mind if I moved on. Maybe I'm wrong though.
If you are only focusing on ‘completing a project’, then yes you will likely be disappointed time and again.
Focus instead on the process. Are you learning new skills, new ways of working, new networking opportunities, etc? if not, why? I learn something new every project i work on. if you are hard working and show value, your networking will pay off in the end. People get new jobs and they will want to work with people that stand out. If you are doing nothing all the time, then you would likely not be one they reach out to for new opportunities.
Just something to think about.
With a few exceptions, the only people to be promoted on my team are the ones who do the bare minimum, have no clue what’s going on, or are offshore workers. There is literally no benefit to being rated consistently exceeds. I’ve got nothing to show for it but more work and being asked to be available outside of business hours.
You can’t work hard because everything changes and all of your hard work becomes pointless. It is better to coast because next week will be different. Why deep dive into a project only to be told it won’t be used?
@gvc+1hAE1tqG I had a manager tell me she “had” to come up with something bad or it would look like she wasn’t doing her job.
So why should I even try, again?
I started out as a go-getter. But after a while I saw that it didn't matter if you simply did your job well.
It's hard for people who have a good work ethic, but you have to force yourself to work at 10% of your capacity to keep your sanity here.
It’s not that I’m lazy Bob, it’s that I just don’t care
Well, more work at least means means more bullet points for your resume, and a deeper well of accomplishments to discuss in an interview to convince another company to hire you. That’s a benefit of working hard in general though, not at Wells specifically.
I work hard get exceeds and consistently exceeds and have always gotten more raise and bonus than others in my team.
I can’t help but be a tryhard. It’s been ingrained in me as a kid. I’ve tried to be a slacker and revolt but i just can’t do it. shrug
Right, why work hard when there's nothing in it for you
I worked really hard for Wells Fargo the entire time that I was employed there. My former Manager at Wells Fargo ALWAYS found some insignificant, trivial thing or an outright lie to put on my performance review to make it look like I was not a good employee. That Manager only has a High School degree and I do not think he deserves to be in the Manager role, finding anything possible to give me a bad performance review. I guess he just "had it out for me" right from the start. Not the Manager who hired me who gave me a great performance review. I was "swapped around" in the job I initially held to the new Manager with just a High School degree, with no say in the job switch.
Not a thing. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the ones who do nothing are simply sidelined and ignored, while the ones who actually do what they get paid to do get dumped on.
And everyone gets the same raise, or close to it.
Sometimes reviews make a difference at layoff time, sometimes not. A lot of other factors come into play, so chances are excellent that working hard won’t matter a wh-t.
Crickets
Nothing positive is the result.
I can't figure out one thing (it's certainly not helping my career advancement) but do tell me if you can think of something.