INTRODUCTION
Who should read this book
This book is for any teen or young adult starting their first job. It will help you as you step into the working world. Many young people get their first taste of responsibility from helping with household chores, and later on, babysitting, lawn cutting or volunteering. I had multiple paper routes when I was in middle school. If you’re too young to remember what a paper route was, you may have to Google it.
At some point, you might get a part-time job at a fast-food restaurant while in high school, or other part-time or full-time work while attending college. Some even become entrepreneurs at young ages. I have friends whose children have an Etsy shop. They make dog toys and sell them at pop-up shops. Another child hires other kids to rake leaves. She is the “sales rep” and the other kids provide the labor. The opportunities for teenagers to set up their own business is limited only by their creativity and imagination and fueled by digital technology.
Or possibly, you finished high school and moved on to college or trade school without formal employment. That is fine, too. The content in this book will help you as you transition to traditional employment after college or trade school.
If you’re a parent or grandparent, this book will make a thoughtful gift for any adolescent or young adult who may be in any of the stages of their life mentioned above.
What is most important for the new, young worker to know? This book will help you establish a good foundation on which to build your lifelong learning in the workplace.
In my nearly 40 years as a supervisor, manager, director and senior executive, I’ve worked with people of all ages, from high school students working at their first jobs to senior workers supplementing their retirement with part-time work. The great advantage of having diversity of age in the workplace is everyone can learn from their co-workers. Each age group brings their own unique perspective.
As a young worker, you have the opportunity to learn about what makes a workplace successful. I encourage you to learn about business practices and processes, how businesses function, how different departments are connected and how they interact and depend on one another.
I always enjoy sharing what I learn with others in my workgroups. My dad was a mathematician by trade but he was also a great teacher. I think I inherited the teaching gene from him. I believe the more knowledge that is shared in the workplace, the better workers are able to make conscious contributions to their own success and to that of the teams on which they serve. That knowledge gives you the ability to set goals for yourself and direct your career.
I have met a number of young people who, either while still in high school or after graduation, are unsure of the career path they want to pursue. Maybe they can't afford college or decided to take a year off while they sort things out. Maybe they decided to attend a trade or technical school. Regardless of the path you take, the guidance in this book will help you to be successful in any job throughout your career.
Whether you work your entire life as an employee or whether you become an entrepreneur and business owner, the advice in this book will serve you well throughout your life.
Why I wrote this book
In the late 1980’s, I was the operations manager for a small commercial office supplies company in Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to that job, all my work experience had been in retail stores. At the time, many commercial office supply distributors did not have retail operations. Instead, our customers would place orders, we would pull and pack their office supply orders in our warehouse and then our drivers would deliver the orders directly to businesses throughout northeast Ohio. This was my first time working in a commercial line of work, meaning, for a business which sold directly to other businesses. We had about 40 employees; sales representatives, customer service, billing and collections, purchasing, warehouse and delivery personnel. The business was owned by two partners. One who oversaw the sales team while the other oversaw internal operations.
I realized later in life, this was the best job I could have had at the time. The business was small enough that I had to wear multiple hats simultaneously. Over the nine years I worked there, I learned an incredible amount about how a business operates and how each area is interrelated with all the others. I did not have a college degree but the owner-partners were generous with their time and placed an incredible amount of trust and confidence in me. I worked long hours, frequently six-day weeks and sometimes even seven-days. It was sometimes a tiring and stressful job. But it was much like working with a family. The owners felt a deep responsibility to all their employees. During my time there, the business revenue grew fourfold.
One day, I hired a new delivery driver named Derrick. He was an energetic and positive young man. In the first days of his working for us, he asked me, “What do I need to do to be successful here?” Frankly, the question caught me off guard. No one had ever asked me that before. I’ve never been super quick on my feet and I didn’t have an immediate answer. Instead, I said, “That’s a great question! Let me think about that and I’ll get back to you.”
I don’t remember how much time it took for me to come up with the answer but I did feel it needed to be uncomplicated, easy to remember and, it needed to be advice that could work for anyone. It needed to cover a broad spectrum of work situations and it needed to be universal. If Derrick left our company, I wanted my answer to apply no matter where he decided to work.
This was the beginning of “Bill’s 4 Rules.” Rules #1 - #4 are what I told Derrick back in the 1980’s. As I advanced throughout my career, working for much larger companies, I continued to teach and preach these four rules.
#1 Show Up
#2 Be On Time
#3 Be Productive
#4 Show You Care
And eventually, I added a 5th rule.
#5 Ask, “How Can I Help?”
Before we explore what’s behind these five rules of the workplace, let’s talk about types of businesses, customers, and decision-making.
