Does your job have a purpose?
The other day I went to pay my monthly electricity bill. Payments are made to the cashier housed at the 5th floor of the CEB building. It has always made me wonder why the Electricity Board could not arrange for payments to be made on the ground floor. Not only will this save the consumer time and the need to use the elevator, it would also save on electricity, as the number of times the elevator is required to go up / come down will significantly lessen. That however, is another story.
Using the single passenger elevator, I found the lift operator seated on a small stool. He pushed buttons to control the elevator on signal or instructions from passengers. He also closed the door of the elevator at each floor where stops were made. Feigning ignorance, I asked him where the ‘new connections’ desk was? He mumbled ‘Don’t know’.
When using the elevator to go down, I found the operator missing - he may have taken a ‘break’. The passengers pushed buttons and we descended smoothly to where we wanted to get off. Now, that’s when I asked myself what exactly does a lift operator do? What is his function? Is he there to do things for other people? What if the other people can very well do it themselves? Why then is such a job created? To me, the CEB’s lift operator served no purpose. He could not even provide me information about the location of an office in the building.
This is a classic example of the Malthusian-Darwin theory where jobs are invented with the false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because of his/her right to exist . Thankfully, it is less evident in the private sector and especially in the hospitality industry.
As an employee, have you ever paused for a moment to think about the purpose of your job? Here’s another question: why did the company I work for create my position…why does my job exist? Take a moment, right now, and do something that most people rarely (if ever) do: think about the purpose of your job. The fact is your job and everyone’s job – exists for one primary purpose: to do things for other people, and, in the hospitality industry, those ‘other people’ are our guests. As Bryan Williams very succinctly puts it “you are either serving the customer or you are serving someone who is”.
Most every job has a function and purpose. However, one can carry out the functions of the job and yet serve no purpose as in the case of the CEB’s lift operator. In the hotel industry one might argue that a bellboy’s function of carrying baggage is without any purpose - after all, guests can and some do it themselves. Not really. It’s not about moving luggage. A bellboy must not only be quick-footed, he must also be quick-witted and have the social skills to deal with a variety of different people that he encounters each day. Opening the front door, transporting guests, giving information, responding to guests’ needs, escorting guests to their rooms, are some other tasks that bring purpose to the bellboy’s job.
A bellboy who does nothing else but shift baggage joins that meaningless universe of futile occupations that serve no purpose and eventually serve none. Automation and advances in artificial intelligence will eliminate many jobs; and first on the chopping board will be those with recurring tasks that are characterised as hard menial or dull work – unkindly called as donkey work.
Shafeek Wahab - – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-Hotelier
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