[The Work Series]III. Help a Brother Out

This post goes closely along with the last one about taking responsibility for yourself. Once you do that, however, you must also hold people to that same standard (like my parents did), or else they'll never learn, either.

One day last semester I discovered the show The Biggest Loser on hulu. I had heard from many friends that the show was amazing, so I watched al of the current season and have been following the new season as it goes. The basic premise is that a group of people compete in pairs to see who can lose the biggest percentage of body weight. (Not the point, but one thing I like about this show is it's focus on making a lifestyle change for the right reasons, not to look physically better.) Usually at the end of every week the person (or two people) who have lost the smallest percentage of body weight are in danger of going home.

One week the contestants were divided into teams with seven or so pairs per team. In this case, the team that had the lowest percentage of total weight lost would send home the worst-performing player. This season there were a lot of parent-children pairs, and the editing really focused on them and their turmoil about wanting to help their children stay on the show no matter what. How they interpreted that desire though was really interesting.


This is Moses and his daughter Kaylee. Moses was really worried about Kaylee going home, so he decided he would wake her up early every morning and do an extra workout on their own together. He pushed and motivated her harder that week than he had in the past, and they paid more attention to the meals they cooked and ate for themselves.


This is Denise and her daughter Sarah. Denise took the view of two other parents on her same team and decided to throw the weigh-in to make sure she was going home instead of her daughter. Denise purposely gained 8 pounds so she would be sent home. Other parents gained 1 or 3 pounds to protect their children.

Interesting fact: Both of these pairs are LDS. How each parent chose to tackle the situation at hand was interesting in light of the gospel, right? Moses gave his daughter the tools to succeed. He got Kaylee to care about her outcome and worked with her to make it happen. I imagine if Kaylee still had had to go home, they would have been content knowing they had done everything they could. On the other team, Denise and the other parents took it upon themselves to sacrifice for their children without telling them. They let their kids do whatever they wanted that week, knowing they would take the fall for them.

I'm not saying the sacrifice situation is bad; sometimes it is necessary. Think of Christ, who took one for the team for the rest of us to stay here "on the ranch" as the show calls it. But I prefer Moses' way of empowering his daughter Kaylee and sticking by the results "after all they could do". Instead of trying to avoid the possible outcome, they tackled it head on by doing their best. Denise took the consequence of her own actions, but did she teach her daughter to do the same?

Read part one.
Read part two.

[The Work Series]II. Taking Responsibility

I knew my Classical Civilizations teacher liked to use big words, but when he started a discussion on "moratoriums" I thought he was talking about something like a crematorium. I finally got that a moratorium was stopping work, and in this case referring to his and his TAs' response to emails submitted about the upcoming paper. The discussion was whether they should answer emails right up to the deadline (5:30 on Friday), or not guarantee an answer for two hours before the deadline (3:30) or for a day before (5:30 on Thursday). I thought it was kindof weird he was even asking us; I would never dare to ask my teacher a question about my paper thirty minutes before it was due and then get indignant when he didn't respond. Especially since this paper (and all others) had been assigned since the beginning of the year.

My thoughts were, if you started it late, finish it on your own. My professor had often stated his willingness to look over the whole paper and give comments if it was turned in a week before the deadline. By answering questions up to the minute the paper was due, they were simply encouraging procrastination by giving basically the same rewards to those who worked hard or not. When a student chose to procrastinate on the paper, they also chose the consequence of not having the teacher's immediate support.

This brought me back to high school, and how everyone's parents got them out of school if there was a project due or test that day. As if the teacher would just pretend the thing hadn't been assigned weeks ago. (Though it seemed like some teachers did go that route.) I remember sometimes thinking, "why won't MY parents just take me out of school like that?" but I don't remember any test or project that was so hard or treacherous I died because I did it the assigned day. My parents didn't pull me out of school because they wanted me to take responsibility for my actions. Whether I procrastinated on the assignment/studying or not, I needed to learn that consequences followed every action. Just because something hard was coming didn't mean I could get whisked away to Sick Day land. That's not how the real world is, or at least it shouldn't be. Oh dang, I have a really scary important interview today I don't want to go to. Let me call up Mom and we'll go on a shopping spree to cheer me up & I'll just put it off until tomorrow. This is life. Be accountable for our own.

Read part one.

[The Work Series]I. Deserving Your Dreams

Lately I've observed and experienced several things related to work I'd like to finally form into words. However, in order to avoid a monstrously long post, I am dividing my ideas up into a series of three. First is Deserving Your Dreams.

At almost any job it is easy to see see clearly divided groups of workers; those who are always looking for work to do, and those who are always looking for ways to get out of the work to do. Those who have a good work ethic are delightful to be around and make the load much easier on the rest of us. Those who are lacking in work ethic, however, get me annoyed because they are getting paid the same amount as the good workers.

I guess the easy thing is just to say, "someone else will do it." Because, since the world also has some good workers, it will (eventually). We have a lot of temptations not to work, like talking to our coworkers, eating snacks, texting, etc. But, as our boss said in a recent note, "there is always work to do if you look around for it."

Perhaps this bothers me more now that I am a supervisor, as it's easier to see how the Testing Center as a whole would work much more efficiently if people actually worked for their money. Also because when I was just a regular worker before becoming a supervisor, I worked hard. It wasn't that hard, why can't people just do it?

I also think of a song Mom introduced me to this Christmas Break. One of the phrases is, "nothing can compare to deserving your dreams," and it is so true. Not that being a supervisor was something I wished for every night before I went to bed, but I really hoped it would happen. And now that it did, I feel great. Not to be prideful, but I truly feel that I deserved that dream. I proved myself as a regular worker even when our boss and other supervisors weren't looking, and now that I'm in that position, I don't feel bad asking other people to get to work because I can say I did all that work, too, just like you!

I guess the moral of this part of the series is that it truly does feel better to know that you deserve your dreams. That you didn't get them just because you were in the right place at the right time, or they needed a body to fill a spot, or you tricked and manipulated your way to the top. Good work is rewarded with happiness.

“When our wagon gets stuck in the mud, God is much more likely to assist the man who gets out to push than the man who merely raises his voice in prayer—no matter how eloquent the oration." - President Dieter F. Uchtdorf