If you aren't getting noticed for the great stuff you do at your job, it's time to toot your own horn.
You work late every day. You’ve never missed a deadline. Your customers send Christmas cards to your puppy. You’re the model employee, yet no one seems to notice. Your boss heaps praise on employees who you know take personal calls at work, promotes the new girl over you, and seems smitten with the charming guy who always brings bagels (though he can’t balance a sales sheet to save his life).
Sometimes being the best employee isn’t enough to get you noticed. It’s time to take matters into your own hands and let your managers know what they’re missing.
Look at me!
Don’t worry, this doesn’t necessarily mean taking out an ad on the side of a bus. Alerting your boss to your awesomeness can be as simple as sending a few e-mails every so often alerting him of your “progress.” In these messages (“just to give you an idea of what I’m up to”), point out that you’re ahead of schedule on the proposal for the Bluth account, indicate the extra mile you’ve gone to make Mr. Grump, the problem customer, happy, and list all the extra projects you’ve taken on.
Sometimes people take things for granted simply because they’ve always reliably gotten done. If you remind your boss that it’s you doing them, he’ll remember the effort involved and be properly appreciative.
Love me!
Your customers love you. Admit it. Next time one of them drops an e-mail or note thanking you for your extra effort, make sure a copy goes to your manager. I once had a guest in a restaurant leave a very kind note thanking me for making their vacation better. I waved it in front of my boss’s nose, and lo and behold, he made a photocopy for my file. Hard evidence that I rock.
Praise me!
Ever have one of those bosses who notices all the “problem” behaviors, but overlooks those that are great? At my last restaurant, news of a cell-phone infraction would be broadcast manager-wide via walkie-talkie, but guest compliments were all but brushed off. Finally, after selling three fish specials to one table, I marched up to the nearest manager and unabashedly boasted about my fish-hawking skills. He thanked me, and that was that. “Aren’t you going to tell everyone over the radio?” I asked. And he did.
Sometimes you have to blatantly ask for a pat on the back. Don’t be shy. It feels good.
