Sometimes people talk to me about feeling down because they have “menial” work. So here’s the tough news about that.

Every job has a menial aspect about it if you look hard enough.  Every role I have ever had came with its share of “menial” work.

One of the things that would happen to me when I was a COO is that I’d get random “service” calls from sales people who somehow got my number.

Now, I clearly wasn’t the right person to help them, but I never forwarded them to someone else. I would listen to their frustration, take down their information, and tell them I would call them back. I would then call around trying to find the right person in our large organization. Once I found the right person, I would talk to them, explain the issue, confirm they were able to help them, and let them know I would be sending someone their way. I would then call the person back with the contact information.

So a couple of things about this:

1. I learned how hard it can be to navigate an organization. It was hard for me to do it, and I worked in the organization, so I couldn’t imagine how hard it would be if you were in a different group.
2. I learned what were the right questions to ask….and it made me understand where we had gaps in our capabilities. Why had this gone wrong in the first place?  Was this happening to lots of other people?
3. The person was always very grateful. I never had someone yell at me or behave badly. For that moment, it felt really good to help them.

One could say that this was menial work, below my pay grade. That I was not the help desk. But that’s not the point. Any work that comes your way that you can do well and help someone else? Nothing menial about that.

A great article in the WSJ review: “The Seven Secrets of Great Team Captains”. Number 1? They took care of tough, unglamorous tasks.