I. School
Throughout my years in school, my focus was often elsewhere: friends, video games, the pubescent yearning for romance, music, and so forth. School itself was by and large a distraction: this place society mandated I spend most of my waking hours, where I spent most of the day learning about things that I didn't find relevant. Trigonometry was not part of my lived experience -- why are we doing this again?
I was fortunate to have grown up in a good home. I have fantastic parents. I didn't know poverty or any true hardship. My dad would often tell me in reference to my education: "You have one job: do it well."
But did I really need to?
I can't speak for everyone, but I went to what I'd consider "good" public schools. Where I grew up, property taxes were high to fund education budgets, and the overall quality of schools and teacher pay reflected it.
I did have access to more electives (four years of guitar!) and advanced placement courses, but I never needed to work super hard to get a decent result. My rule was pay attention in class, be active participant in discussion, and do what was asked of me on time. A lot of my peers didn't even do this. In my senior year AP English, we read MacBeth and the majority of students refused to participate, leaving me to read all of the parts aloud.
I rarely studied. Occasionally for finals or APs, maybe I'd dedicate some time to review with friends who were smarter than me (hint: it's because they actually studied the material outside of school hours), but I rarely put in much effort. I knew I'd pass with marks that were acceptable without expending extra effort, and I could turn my focus to whatever other interests I had. I finished in the top 10% of my class of ~350. Good enough to get into a respectable university while not earning the ire of my parents.
II. Career Beginnings
In university, I studied business. It felt like the degree with the greatest ROI for the least amount of effort, and most importantly to my developing brain, the least amount of math and science required. I concentrated on human resources, because I felt like I'd be good at it after my experience as a trainer at Panera Bread, but also because I liked pretending I was a baseball general manager in MVP Baseball 2004. Putting together a winning team felt like the job of HR to enable, and I wanted to be the equivalent of a baseball GM without having to work for free to break into a baseball front office.
I graduated at the age of 21. After months of networking and speaking with recruiters at staffing agencies, I was able to land a temp gig at this consultancy that specialized in performance management. I was helping their VP of HR with hiring, onboarding plans, and benefits. I was paid $15 an hour. My approach to work mirrored my approach to school. Do what was asked of me and when I wasn't explicitly assigned something, go chill out. I'd be able to deliver "good enough" work just doing what was asked, sitting around while I waited for a new request to come in.
Unsurprisingly, I was let go after three months. "That's temping for you," my boss said when she let me know I wasn't needed anymore. It came as a shock, not because I was let go, but because I knew there was still more work she needed help with. I had turned down other interviews for permanent roles that were less convenient for me to get to in NYC because I thought the temp thing would last longer.
III. That had to be a fluke, right?
Later, I got a job as a recruiter at a small staffing firm. I can write a whole series of posts about my feelings on this industry, but again, same thing: I was paid $37k annually and was asked to recruit candidates for jobs others on my team were getting contracted out to fill. They owned client relationships, I'd source candidate relationships. They called me "Director of Talent Acquisition" and gave me my own office at 22. I thought I was on top of the world.
Needless to say, despite being salaried, I didn't expend much extra effort. I was in by 9 and out by 5. I hated missing my train more than I cared about doing my job properly. I was able to bring in candidates, but had a low success rate. The job taught me how to hustle and talk over the phone, but it didn't really click with me at the time that I was going through the motions without really bothering to learn how to do my job well. I took instructions at face value, never asked clarifying questions or probed for additional detail, I just went and made calls to bring people in. If the person vaguely seemed like a decent fit, I'd have them come in to meet the others who managed the client relationship who would then set them up with the interview.
I was let go after six months. Clearly, something wasn't working. While there were other things happening in the background that led to this (we were being prepped for an acquisition), my new boss voiced vague frustration with my approach to work. "It's clear that this isn't the right fit" was what I recall her saying. I wasn't sure how they came to this conclusion, since I rarely got feedback and did what they asked of me. In fairness, I never asked for any feedback, either.
IV. Waking Up
The following week, I land on my feet and start as a temp-to-perm recruiter at a 50 person technology startup. From my time at the staffing firm, tech employees seemed to be the smartest, most well paid, and happiest, so I focused my search there. But I knew I'd need to approach work differently this time. My resume was quickly filling up with short stints and few accomplishments. I knew my references would be mediocre, at best. I was also tired of looking for new work. I was 22 and had been out of school for barely over a year, but was now on my fourth company. Beyond the two jobs described above, I supplemented income QA'ing digital textbooks part-time.
What is the "bare minimum"? What is "good enough"? Clearly, these things were not the minimum nor were they good enough. Operating to the text of my offer letter and the precise instructions of my leaders was not giving me the results they expected.
My father's words echoed: "You have one job: do it well."
Maybe it was time to take this more seriously.
The tech startup had a different vibe from the previous jobs, and I knew this was a good environment. I was going to try to make this work. I came in early. I asked questions. I proposed ideas. I followed through on commitments. I asked for feedback and made iterations to my approach. While my original job description was focused on scheduling interviews, I volunteered to do phone screens, eventually running a full-cycle for a few roles.
I was brought on full-time and given a raise. But I didn't stop there. I continued to volunteer for more difficult tasks and harder searches, proactively reviewed our historical hiring data to make recommendations on where to invest resources (hint: it was referrals and active sourcing on LinkedIn), and helped my boss and the company where we needed help, even if it was outside my area of scope. I continued to get pay raises and earn the trust of leaders.
Was I working more than before? Yes. But I was also getting good at my job. More importantly, I found this feeling of expending extra effort enjoyable. I wasn't just "passing class", but I was actively getting better. I was being trusted with more important work than my peers who had more years of experience. My relationship with work became less adversarial: Instead of figuring out how to do the least amount of work and still get my salary, I instead focused on building skills and delivering more, building better working relationships in the process.
Three and a half years later, I'd hired over 75 people and built out a company-wide onboarding program. I'd gotten exposure to all of the orgs and how they functioned. I learned a lot about how business worked and how people were expected to perform. I was putting in the work and having fun doing it and getting better. I'd learned that discretionary effort, when applied well in the right environment, was giving me greater satisfaction.
V. Closing Thoughts
"Good character is not formed in a week or a month. It is created little by little, day by day. Protracted and patient effort is needed to develop good character." - Heraclitus
Good enough is rarely, actually, good enough. Maybe in the context of a tight timeline where you need to make a trade off, sure: don't let perfect be the enemy of good (and actually shipped). But in the context of how you carry yourself as a professional and how you work, "good enough", is in fact, not quite "good enough".
Ten years later, working with more senior people and evaluating the work of my peers and subordinates, I see how this plays out. People who do work that is "good enough" do not get praise, get placed on more strategic projects, or earn promotions. It leads to stasis and eventual replacement. While they might not be bad enough to get fired, no one tends to miss them when they leave.
Perhaps a better way to look at this is "good enough, for now, but not forever". Put in more dire terms, "if you aren't getting better, you're getting worse." An old boss would say incremental effort and time compounds like interest, especially if you're putting them into solving tough problems. I don't think this explicitly means grinding only on behalf of your employer, but applies to self-study and development outside of work, too.
I recognize this may read as some endorsement of hustle culture BS, or that some of you will think I'm getting exploited doing more than the absolute minimum for a living wage. And maybe there is truth in that. But private companies aren't charities and a job isn't mandated like grade school. They need a job done well, and there are consequences for them if the person they're investing in to do it isn't making an impact to justify that cost. I'm all for worker protections, but I also recognize the company needs to earn money for me to get paid.
Getting better compounds, and putting in the effort to build skills and learn early on will only help you later as you navigate your career. I've seen too often in my time as a recruiter where people with plenty of years of experience get passed over because they have little to actually show for their time at work. Years of experience is rough heuristic for talent and skill, but a lot of people sort of coast through their existence. Even a little extra effort will help you get ahead. It's easy to spend ten years in corporate not actually getting much done.
I think there is something in our biology that wants us to expend effort and create things well. There's a reason we feel satisfied when we create something good, whether it's something like a piece of music or a dish, or even something mundane like a spreadsheet or improved ticketing process. Good enough may be fine for today, but it quickly isn't by tomorrow.
Unfortunately, some places only want "good enough" or don't give the time and space to deliver things that are high quality. This is always difficult. You may call it "soul crushing": where you spend all of your time putting out subpar work because the environment isn't conducive to doing anything better. Like trying to get decent wok hei on a crappy electric coil stove.
Part of being good at work is recognizing when the ingredients aren't there to make a tasty meal. You may have to stomach it for a bit, but shouldn't let it become your diet for long. If the food at the restaurant was bad, you probably wouldn't dine there twice.
I often think what if I had learned the value of putting forth effort instead of doing the bare minimum earlier. I was ignorant in my privilege. I was fortunate to come to this realization in my early twenties, but what sort of trajectory would I have been on instead had I figured out the rewards of effort earlier in life? It's hard to say. I can only move forward now.
“Life is like a play: it's not the length, but the excellence of the acting that matters.” - Seneca