CAN YOU JUST…?
Jane is a healthcare professional. She sets aside one day per week to catch up on “admin”. You know. Email, planning meetings, organising rotas, writing reports. That sort of thing. The things that build up whilst she’s out there helping her patients.
Meanwhile, in another part of the world, Phil is a charity CEO. Phil cares passionately both about the cause, and about his staff. So much does Phil care about both of these things, he will always cover for his staff when they are not around, such that the cause doesn’t suffer.
Jane and Phil have lives outside work. Well actually, no they don’t. They’d like to, but they don’t. That’s because they spend their evenings and weekends catching up with all the workplace stuff they never got around to during daylight hours. That and a bit of basic living. Shopping, cooking, sleeping. That’s a “maybe” on the sleeping.
And the reason for this?
Both Jane and Phil have fallen for the deceit (conscious or unconscious) in the three little words “Can you just?”.
Jane’s admin day is continuously lost to “Can you just?”
As in “Can you just come to a quick meeting?” Or “Can you just cover for me for an hour?”. Or try “I need to submit this report today. Can you just take a quick look at it?”.
Phil, our well-meaning charity CEO, is for ever picking up the slack when his staff come with their requests at short/zero notice. Requests like “I forgot about Alice’s school play tomorrow. I need to go. Can you just write to these donors for me?”. And many variants on the theme.
“Can you just?” should come with a warning attached. A health warning, in fact.
Very often the answer to “Can you just (fill in the gap)?” should be “Sorry, but no”.
Which leads to other solutions being identified. To a bit of imagination and creativity. And to a greater degree of planning ahead, taking responsibility and (frankly) maturity on the part of the requester.
So let’s look at what happened next in these cases.
Jane, our over-stretched physician, did indeed put a true boundary around her admin day. Key word here, “boundary”. And surprise, surprise, those looking for some of her time found other solutions, the easy way out having been closed off to them. Maybe they simply took responsibility for finding their own solutions, rather than looking to Jane to fix it.
The lovely Phil simply began to push back, and whilst remaining open to flexible working, also made it clear that such flexibility still meant that the work had to be done. So yes, going to Alice’s school play in work hours is OK, but next time please plan ahead. And by the way, later in the day you will still need to write to those donors.
“Can you just?”. It’s a dangerous question, and often a way of ducking responsibilities.
Fair play, sometimes the answer is “Yes. OK”.
But much of the time, other answers are available.
GOING DEEPER
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