Alex Cantatore
Turlock Auto Plaza. Circuit City. Mistletoe and Roses. Home Depot. It seems like everyone’s going out of business these days. No one’s job is safe, regardless of how long they’ve worked somewhere or how long their employer has been in business.
I guess there’s a reason they call it a depression, because it sure as heck makes me depressed.
But fear not, readers, for I can help you survive this economic downturn unscathed. With a little help from my favorite reality TV shows, that is.
Admit it, no matter how bad your job is you never want to hear the words “You’re fired.” And if those words happen to come from an extremely rich man with bad hair and a New York accent in front of a national audience… Eesh. That’s twice as bad.
Think about it: being a contestant on a reality TV show is like working the toughest job on the planet. A co-worker is fired every week, and all of America gets to judge your performance in the workplace.
Thankfully, the rest of us here at home can learn a few things from the successes-and failures-of our favorite reality show stars.
• Aim to impress, not to not disappoint.
Sure, in the first few weeks of “American Idol” you can get away with songs that don’t really wow the audience. If you don’t step outside your comfort area, sing easy songs, and never miss a note, you can make it quite far in the competition.
But you aren’t going to win if you don’t do your absolute best.
If you’re not pushing yourself, you’re not going to turn out work that’s on the same level as your co-workers who are going that extra mile. It’s worth going for that high note or that difficult solo, because even if you miss a note, you’re going to impress a lot more people than you would by playing it safe.
• No matter how little time you have, you’re better off if you take a second to think.
In “Top Chef’s” Quickfire Challenges, competitors have less than an hour to conceive of and produce a gourmet meal. Obviously, you have to work quickly to produce something impressive in such a limited amount of time.
The competitors that go running for ingredients and start chopping right away rarely win, though. Their spectacularly complicated dishes with as many components as they can finish usually end up as a failure in taste.
Why? Because they never really planned what all their myriad ingredients were going to come together to taste like. And they certainly didn’t stop to think about how it all tasted at the end.
Those whose dishes are a little bit simpler, who take the time to think about each component will come together, and make sure they’ve remembered all the details usually come out on top.
• It ain’t your fault? We don’t care.
In “Top Chef” a few weeks ago, a refrigerator malfunctioned and destroyed the food that three competitors had spent hours preparing. And-guess what-nobody cared.
The chefs were scheduled to cater a banquet that day, and they had to do it no matter how good their excuses were.
At the end of the day, if you have to do something then you have to do it, and you have to do it well. Everyone faces adversity; it’s those who triumph, regardless, who will survive.
• If it doesn’t matter, work twice as hard.
Every episode of “Top Chef” starts out with a Quickfire Challenge. This challenge doesn’t count towards who wins or loses at the end of the episode, so a lot of the chefs write it off.
For winning the Quickfire, though, you get immunity from elimination at the end of the episode. And there’s a valuable lesson to be learned from this.
Even when you’re not being graded on a particular issue at work, you should still work your hardest at it. That way, even if you screw up a later assignment, your boss will remember your earlier triumphs and will stand up for you.
• If all else fails, follow the directions.
In the “Amazing Race,” you get a sheet of paper at the start of every task explaining exactly what you need to do. And, amazingly, almost no one ever reads these guidelines, spending hours wandering around lost instead.
In “Project: Runway,” at least one person intentionally ignores the directions to a task each season, refusing to sacrifice their artistic vision and ending up eliminated. In “Top Chef,” amuse-bouches end up as a plate full of food and lose every time.
It’s the cardinal sin of reality TV: not doing what you’re told to do. If your boss asks you to do something, do what they want you to do. It’s a seemingly easy task, but just doing what people want you to do is one of the most important parts of success.
As you’re thinking of your own lessons learned from reality TV, I have one last suggestion. Please, pay no heed to shows like “Survivor” when planning your workplace behavior.
Unlike “Survivor,” in the real world your co-workers aren’t responsible for your employment. Of course co-workers would want to pick off the strong to make themselves look good, but bosses want to keep the best workers around.
In fact, now that I think about it, Chhun Sun has been eyeing my desk a bit lately… Good thing the editor has the final say on that issue.
To contact Alex Cantatore, e-mail acantatore@turlockjournal.com or call 634-9141 ext. 2005.
Originally published in the Turlock Journal 1/14/2009.
Retrieved from the Turlock Journal Web site.