Latest videos
Give Me Work
by: Bill Medica - 04/14/09
“There’s a scene in the Meryl Streep movie ‘Out of Africa…” I start many sentences this way. Sometimes the sentence is “There’s a scene in a Dustin Hoffman movie,” or “There’s a scene in a Robert DeNiro film,” but I am always drawing some connection between movies I’ve watched and life lessons I’ve learned. I have, in fact, watched some movies so many times I confuse them with my own memories. I have to remind myself often that I was not the one asked to throw the One Ring into the magma of Mount Doom. But in most cases, I simply find everything I needed to know about anything by watching certain films countless times. Most friends politely listen. Some roll their eyes. Some turn a deaf ear. But please, hear me out. I tell you this -- anything one needs to know about the workplace can be garnered by repeated viewings of the Meryl Streep movie “The Devil Wears Prada.” But I am getting ahead of myself. First back to Ms. Steep in “Africa…”
There is a scene in “Out of Africa” where Meryl Streep’s character Karen Blitzen’s emotional life is coming unhinged. In an attempt to quiet her mind and ease her torment, she leaves her immaculate house and walks to the fields of the coffee plantation she owns. It is there she asks one of her employees to give her manual work to do. She simply says, “Give me work.” In the hot African sun, in the dusty field, coffee beans up to her elbows, she escapes conditions she can’t control, she is liberated from her worries. It is her sanctuary.
In “The Devil Wears Prada,” Streep plays the icy, yet knowing magazine boss Miranda Priestly. In one scene, Miranda’s emotional life coming unhinged as she sits with her employee Andrea Sachs, played by Anne Hathaway. Andrea reaching out to her boss to offer consolation asks if there is anything that she can do to help. Streep’s Miranda says very clearly through swollen eyes, “Your job.” As in if you want to be of any help to me -- simply do your job.
At a time when we should all be grateful to even have work, I ask that you to go a step further. I ask that you start to view work in a different light. And I tell you that if you can begin to view work in a different way, work can become anything but work. Whether using your job to help your self or to help others, work can become one of your most stabilizing influences in your life.
As an entrepreneur, I learned very quickly that if you don’t do the work you don’t survive. And, of course, you certainly don’t thrive. All of us should learn to look at work the way these two characters have. Not as drudgery to be endured, but rather as opportunity, as a way to contribute, to learn, to improve, to better our own lives and to enrich the lives of others. A job is just a job unless you see the fulfillment that comes in simply doing the work. Trust me, if you concentrate on the work, on doing the best job you can, in elevating your performance, on servicing your clients, in helping your company achieve success the rewards will come and they will be many.
And if you don’t have work right now, stay focused and you will soon. And when you do I hope that you see all that is good in it.
Just like in the movies.
