YOU DON’T HAVE TO BE THE PERFECT EMPLOYEE...

Everyone wants to be the perfect employee – the one always on time, bursting with great ideas, receiving praises from the boss ever so often, and a wonderful teammate to all your colleagues. Give you the Employee of the Year award already!

But believe it or not, being perfect has its downside. Even more so when you are at work. How?

Consider this scenario – who is the person everyone turns to when something needs to be done ASAP? Yups, you. The employee everyone can trust to work over the weekend without complaining? No guesses there.

Because you’re such a reliable person, you’re top of mind when it comes to leading projects and taking on more responsibilites. Which is all good if it helps you get that promotion faster... but if being a perfect employee in your company means doing whatever you’re told no questions asked, then you may want to reconsider whether it’s a good deal to be so perfect.

The problem with the label “perfect employee” is that sometimes you are taken advantage of. Some do it unknowingly (after all, you’ve never said no before!) while others know you won’t turn them down. And so you’re working the extra hours, doing the extra tasks, giving up your personal time to help others cope – all without any reward at all.

Essentially, if being the perfect employee means putting work above everything else, you may want to give back that Employee of the Year award!

Here are more reasons why being perfect isn’t well, perfect:

When your boss takes advantage of you
It may not be intentional but when you have a right-hand person who is on top of everything, you tend to depend on that person to get things done right. Which is why your boss turns to you always whenever she needs someone she can rely on despite having a whole team at her disposal! Soon, you’ll be shouldering more responsibilities than you should and worst, you may be taken for granted – after all, you don’t say no and you’re expected to just step up.

You want your extra effort to be appreciated and moreover, you want to be thanked for it in the form of a promotion or salary increment. If this is you, take note of the extra work you’re doing so that when work eval comes long, you have everything you need to start making some of those demands you deserve.

When you don’t say no
Yes to extra work. Yes to extra hours. Yes to everything. How about saying yes to yourself first? Being perfect doesn’t mean you need to be all about work, work, work. Instead, an employee who does perfect work knows how to create balance between work and life or risk burnout – and that should be you!

When you don’t speak up
Perfect employees don’t rock the boat. They accept it as it is and don’t question things. That’s the worst thing you can do at work where you should be given the liberty to share your ideas or how are you going to grow as a person and talent?

Or what happens when you know something is not done the right way or illegally at work? Will you be the perfect employee who just keeps quiet about it?

When you put everyone else’s needs ahead of yours
You spend all your work hours trying to impress your colleagues and keeping your boss happy. Bad move, perfect employee! You should be looking out for your own happiness at work... because only then will you be able produce good work and actually be happy to do so!

Plus, imagine what’s going to happen when you say no to your boss for the first time or let your colleagues down? Also, not forgetting how you can become exhausted a whole lot faster when you try to please everyone around you.

Photo by Jonathan Hoxmark on Unsplash