Perhaps this has happened to you:
You’re sitting in a conference room, at your place of employment, listening to a band of co-workers discuss a looming issue that will result from the successful completion of a larger project… and you know what the solution to the issue is. Of course you know the solution, because you are the solution. It’s practically your job description.
Everyone in the room is waiting for you to raise your hand and volunteer 30 or so hours of your time to dedicate to the solution for the issue. Then, everyone will relax, the conversation will peter to a conclusion, the meeting will end, and you will return to your desk and check your stock portfolio.
But for some reason, despite being a somewhat exemplary employee who does not typically shirk from responsibility, you just don’t feel like it. You don’t want to have anything to do with this issue, and the thought of carrying out the tasks involved with the solution for this issue makes you want to go home and eat coconut oil-roasted almonds while watching streaming Netflix. That’s how you want to spend the precious time that you have been allotted on this Earth. Not by being the solution to the issue.
The innate nature of the issue requires you to take ownership of the solution, but cripes, can’t someone else do it? You sit there quietly as your co-worker volley the issue around the table, waiting for you to step up and spike the issue off of the table by volunteering to do what you are paid to do. Although several people at the meeting at higher-ranking, no one has the proper authority to task you with a project of this magnitude. Sure, they are dropping hints, glancing in your direction as they speak, repeating words that seemed honed to describe your core job responsibilities, but your name is not mentioned. Maybe it’s because they fear your reaction, maybe it’s because your boss died 3 months ago, or maybe it’s because you look aggressively evasive.
Finally, exasperation snaps you out of your silent rebellion. You say “Why don’t I…?” and then outline how you will solve the issue by doing what everyone has already agreed needs to be done. A slight sigh of relief ripples through the meeting’s attendants now that the stray action item has found its way to the proper home. Before you know it, a deadline has been set and progress checks have been established, the meeting is adjoined, and you leave the conference room, the new owner of an issue.
It’s moments like those that I wish I had pursued my dream of being a punk rock band groupie.
