A common complaint about Millennials that I hear pretty often is that they don’t want to pay their dues at work. Even though I always here this complaint, this past week I found myself complaining to my mom about something work related. (Now I wasn’t sure I even wanted to write about this topic since my boss and lots of people I work with read my blog, but I think this is a common problem with Millennials at work. Since I am always honest on my blog and with the people I work with, I figured it would be a good idea to talk about it anyway.) Anyway, back to my story. I was complaining about a specific task that I find to be both mundane and painful to complete at work. As I was complaining, my mom stopped me mid-sentence and said, “suck it up you have to pay your dues at work.”
And I think she is right. Millennials at work have to do tasks that they find mundane, painful, useless and terrible. But an important part of climbing up the corporate ladder is proving yourself, and the best way to prove yourself is to do a fantastic job at a terrible task that no one else wants to do. Now doing a fantastic job at a sucky task, doesn’t mean that it will suck any less, but it does mean that people will respect you for not complaining and will appreciate that the task is getting completed.
That being said, I still don’t want to do this task. And that made me wonder, why is it so important for Millennials to pay their dues at work? If I hate doing a task and I’m not good at it, wouldn’t it make more sense for me to do something else that I am really good at instead? Wouldn’t I be benefiting the business by working on something where my skills and talents can be properly utilized?
Probably, yes. But I have been assigned to the task and I have to complete it. Which is why I am going to suck it up and do a damn good job at this task that I hate, even though I don’t want to.
So to all the Millennials out there, do you think paying your dues sucks too?
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Nice post! I think paying dues is excruciating for every generation! LOL – I completely agree that we should be tasked with things that we enjoy, are great at doing, and find challenging. Makes me wonder why we can’t just get rid of the task instead. – I enjoy reading your blog!
Good post. If it makes you feel any better Millenials aren’t being singled out when it comes to paying one’s dues. I’m a Gen Xer and was told the same thing starting from my first job at Carl’s Jr. Among my tasks were to clean floor drains and bathrooms. Yuck!
I’m well beyond that kind of work now, but there are still some tasks at work I’d rather not do. For those, attitude is everything. You summed that up very well in your post.
” But an important part of climbing up the corporate ladder is proving yourself, and the best way to prove yourself is to do a fantastic job at a terrible task that no one else wants to do. Now doing a fantastic job at a sucky task, doesn’t mean that it will suck any less, but it does mean that people will respect you for not complaining and will appreciate that the task is getting completed.”
Typo. 2nd line-here should be hear
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