My boss is having us all pitch in to do office work while we're understaffed for the spring season, but instead of doling out orders she asked us what responsibilities we'd like to have, enjoy having, or be comfortable doing. It means getting more hours, which I'm kind of desperate for these days.
So I said I'd do anything that involves design (making info cards for clients, designing yearbooks, cropping photos). And she said cool. Done. You get those things, I'll let you know when we need them.
Time came last week where she needed me to do 15 separate info card designs, each with it's own qr code to the gallery, unique passcode, and I had to make it look cute but readable.
It took me about 5 hours. I came up to her desk at the end of the day with a thumb drive. She asked me how they were coming.
"This is them." I handed her the usb.
"You're done already?"
"Yeah."
"How did you do them so fast?"
"You asked me to do a task that plays on my strengths and that I enjoy doing. This is what happens when you put people in roles that suit them."
"If I'd tried to do it, it would have taken three days!"
I have a degree in a design discipline that emphasizes completing a large number of nearly identical drawings very quickly, and my side hustle requires me to be my own PR team. Making a bunch of quarter-page flyers out of clip art is something I've had to do for free and yall just paid me to do it.
Onion headline: Manager is Accidentally Good at Job
Local Manager Discovers Specialization Not So Bad, Actually
