Questions: Your Career
Questions is a category designed to help technicians who are already working in the field figure out if their place of employment is getting it done for them.
What does the term career mean to you?
Have you considered whether or not you would be working alone?
Is working along side of others important to you?
Did your vo-tech teachers discuss the various aspects of a career?
Have any of these aspects matched up to what you’ve experienced?
Questions: Your Education
Questions is a category designed to help technicians who are already working in the field figure out if their place of employment is getting it done for them.
How does your family feel about your continued education…or lack of one?
Do you have a degree in your field?
Does your company offer educational programs on the technical, non-technical aspects and safety related aspects of your work?
Does your company offer any incentives for completing educational programs?
Questions
How do I know if this job is really working for me?
Questions is a category designed to help technicians who are already working in the field figure out if their place of employment is getting it done for them.
This could be a tough question to answer if you do not know the answer to this question: Of what could this job be? Or look at it this way: One doesn’t know what one doesn’t know.
Allow us to paint a picture here…
You take care of your customer’s problems. You know this because there is usually a big smile on their face when you leave. Some customers even offer to tip you. You also know that things seem to be working out pretty well because Suzie, your company’s receptionist tells you that on average, four of your customers call each week with positive things to say about you. Your manager never tells you about these calls. You don’t think twice about this because that’s the way it’s always been around here. You figure that Bob the manager figures, you’re just doing your job. No big deal. Or is it?
You probably didn’t realize that in other companies people are appreciated and recognized for their efforts. Some companies thank you, some hand out awards, some give money, some talk about your efforts in team meetings. Some do all.
Perhaps you are not wired for the need to be appreciated or recognized. That’s ok, but understand, you are in the minority. What is important is that you should be appreciated and recognized by your manager. While you might not need the gratification for a job well done, the failure for management to recognize it is smoke signaling a fire of much greater proportion – namely the diminished opportunity for all within your company to grow, develop and prosper. The responsibility for you to be appreciated and recognized begins with you. This statement is the core foundation here at The Technician Shop. It’s so important that we will say it again:
The responsibility for you to be appreciated and recognized begins with you
Now when you’re performing your work in such a manner that you should be appreciated and recognized and you’re not, well, hopefully we can help you help your manager with that – down the road, but right now this is all about you. And if you’re like most folks who use both their mind and hands for a living, you could use a little help with you.
Ask Small Questions
Small steps forward – the key to personal growth and development.
Small questions act to program and engage our brain. Larger questions tend to create fear, inaction and loss of creativity. Lets say that you need to clean the cab of your truck. You open the door. Once you side step the can of tuna fish that is still rolling in the parking lot, you look at a sea of papers, parts, books and something that smells pretty bad. You say to yourself, “how am I going to clean all of this?” You shudder, gather up the tuna fish and climb into the truck. “Too much, I’ll do it another time.” Instead, try asking yourself, “what one thing can I throw away?” And then do it. Ask another small question and do that as well. Pretty soon you’ll have your task done.
Robert refers to the hippocampus, a part of our brain that decides what information to store and what to retreive. The hippocampus’ main criterion for storage is repetition. If we repetively ask ourself a small question like, “what one small step could I take to improve my appearance?” our brain will soon provide an answer – like, “shave every single day Dan.”
