Passing along some advice...not Tiger Woods related

I actually have nothing to say about Tiger Woods right now but figured it would be frowned upon to not somehow include him in this post...."Tiger Woods has a lot of cars...now he has a hole in one" (The Book of Sheibs, p. 24)

With that out of the way I wanted to share a piece of advice I received early on in my young advertising career that has helped me throughout the beginning stages of my metaphorical career journey.

Two summers ago I was an intern at an advertising agency which was also my first job in an office (The Office - Season Five). Needless to say it was quite a transition from wearing steel toed boots and sweet shirts with my name on a patch over my left breast (go ahead and giggle you immature Ikes/Ingrids).

Towards the end of the summer, summer days wasting away, my supervisor gave me some parting wisdom. He told me that whenever your boss or supervisor asks you to do something (so like your job) whether it be a huge, month long project or a quick email, think to yourself...is there anything else I can do while completing this task to make my boss' job easier?

Often times this means doing something or figuring something out that your supervisor did not necessarily tell you directly.

It seems like a pretty simple idea, in fact it is a very simple idea, but I cannot tell you how many times I have thought about that conversation and applied it to the job I have now. Your supervisor may send you a word doc and ask you to print 30 copies of it. Give it a once over and fix any blatant typos. You don't even need to tell him or her you did it, the point is not to do something and then expect a sticker for it like you got 100% on your first grade spelling test (see video below). The point is to get in the habit of making your supervisor's job easier in order to help the agency run a little or lot more efficiently. Maybe someday you will be the supervisor and you will have an intern or junior person that is intuitive to helping you out...then we got a whole Lion King, circle of life thing going on....which rules.



Don't be an idiot and take this too literally to the point of reading through that same document you were asked to print and re-write a paragraph thinking that will really be going above and beyond. Just be smart the next time you are given a task and ask yourself, is there anything else I can do that will make my supervisor's job easier?

One love one heart,

Just be smart,

Eric McPherson


Follow me on twitter @EricWMcPherson (if you are hip and enjoy the Twitter)