Had a talk with a lady at the food bank in Toledo that changed how I handle my crew

Last Tuesday I was volunteering at the Toledo food bank, sorting cans with this older woman named Carol. She noticed I was getting frustrated trying to stack boxes that kept falling over, and she said "Slow down, you're fighting the boxes instead of working with them." That hit me hard because that's exactly how I've been running my plumbing crew the last few months. I was always pushing them to finish jobs faster, and we kept having to redo stuff. So this week I tried her approach, just took a breather and let the guys work at their own pace on a water heater swap. We finished 20 minutes early and didn't have a single leak to fix after. Has anyone else had a random stranger's words completely flip how you do your job?

2 comments

2 Comments

keithharris27d ago

Did you read that study about how overworking leads to more mistakes?

derek_ramirez26d ago

Yeah @keithharris, I've definitely been there. For me, I started setting a hard stop at a certain time and just walking away from my desk. It sounds basic, but forcing that break actually helped me focus better the next day instead of grinding through and making dumb errors.