Your work – It’s not so much the job, it’s what you put into it. We all travel a road. And on this road, we travel by different vehicles. Some are content to drive the same vehicle for a very long time. They maintain and put tender loving care into their vehicle. They are most proud of it. Others work their way from vehicle to vehicle. With each vehicle they find a little something more that they like about it than the last one. But they take care of each vehicle like it’s the last one they’ll ever have. This is how you should view each job that you have.

A little attention – Think about Mary at work. How much time do you think she has to pay attention to each of her customers? Not much, right? How then, can so many people remember and appreciate her efforts? You know the answer. Mary is real. She truly cares about people and how they are doing. She can convey this sense to people within a minute or two.

If Mary can do this in so little amount of time, what do you suppose you can do when you are in a customer’s home or place of business for over a half hour? You know. Be real. Care. Show it. Have fun. The goal is not to receive attention. But you will.

We’ve heard the term responsibility equated to job ownership.  Take responsibility for your work.  Odds are, if you’re reading this, you get that.  Here’s another way to look at job ownership.  Think that for every service call, every project, every interaction with a customer or coworker that you have, you leave a billboard sized picture of yourself in their mind.  Think about that.  Do you want them to relate that picture of you to something good?  Or do you want them to relate it to a steaming pile of garbage?

People can try to force their view point of job ownership on you.  That’s fine, especially if it corresponds to yours.  If it doesn’t, just remember that billboard sized picture.  You do what you do, act the way you do, because you care and because you do want others to equate your picture with your work.  Not only then are you taking ownership of your work, you’re taking ownership of your self and career.

Hey Dave, isn’t a lot of what you teach here to get us to give better customer service?

Great question.  To explain, check this out.  Lets say you have a beat up, bucket of rusted pieces-parts car.  You want that car to run like a lean, mean street machine.  Someone tells you to paint it.  So you paint it, rust and all.  But it doesn’t run any better.

Painting the car is like someone sending you to customer service training or watching a customer service training DVD or reading a book – when you’ve got other parts of your game in need.

At The Technician Shop, we want you to be right with you…the whole you.  When your game is on; when you are working your educational plan, when your relationships with others produce support, when your image is clean and smart, when you are developing skills, when you’re a resource to others no matter you’re low man in seniority, when your family feels good about your work, when you have excellent dialog with your manager – when you have all this going on, you’ll be right there with customer service.  Heck you might not even need a customer service class.

When your game is on, customers will ask for you, they’ll wait for you.  Your coworkers will want to work with you.  You’ll be a go-to person for your company.  You’ll be known in your community, your town, your industry.  When your game is on, that cherry paint job will be covering a lean, mean street machine.