I have a shift in half an hour

When I was a young Corpie, I always thought it was kind of curious to see the people in charge of the company taking shifts like I was. Why wasn't their time taken up by Important Business Decisions - and if they were on the contact list as Director or CEO, why were they on the schedule as Stocker or Cashier? At the time, I didn't understand it, but I think this says a lot about the Corp as an organization.

Not every student-run company does this - you don't see the GUASFCU Board working shifts as a teller. Nor would managers in most firms do the same work as an entry-level employee, even occasionally. And not that that's bad - everyone in any leadership position has to focus first on his or her particular responsibilities, or the organization would suffer. But that's not to say we in the Corp can't do our jobs better if we maintain a presence and familiarity with the critical point of customer interaction - face-to-face contact between the Georgetown community and a Corpie.

In many companies as large as ours, it would be impossible, or at least frowned upon, for the people in charge of long-term planning and broad projects to also have an intimate knowledge of operations at the level of the individual employee. Too many meetings. But I think we find this pattern throughout the Corp, at every level - as a shift manager, you know why a drawer might be off from having worked as a cashier and as a service director, you know how best to communicate with your employees because you were in their shoes maybe just a semester or two ago. And while we're at it, the shoes aren't all that different. I think one of the most important attributes for a Corp leader to have is humility - by definition, we're all pretty new at what we're doing. It's odd for someone to hold the same position for longer than a year (think if the real world operated that way!) and we're all going to make mistakes.

Of course, we're also capable of directing a lot of creative energy and Corp love toward making the place a little better. So how do we do that? Well, whatever it is that you pursue as a Board member, service director, or service UM/MM member, it will have to be realized on shift. Your project will inevitably manifest itself in the on shift environment - be it in a new drink, new POS structure, new attitude, anything. And by staying intimately familiar with that experience, you can couple that with the critical attitude of a leader and figure out what's good and what could use some attention. So with that in mind, I gotta go cash.