The other day I was unwinding with friends at another friend’s apartment. Amidst the beer and cigarette smoke, an interesting conversation commenced concerning workers’ value and how being able to accurately present one’s value is a critical skill.
This well-spoken and intelligent friend of mine is Conway. Two years my junior, he attends GW and interns with a very well respected think tank here in the District of Columbia. He focuses on economics and global markets, so you can imagine he would be the one to lead such a discussion. We starting talking about the all the hundreds of customers I had seen try on shoes at the retail store where I work. He then began to quantify the number of people with whom I had tried shoes on, the number of hours spent with different types of customers, and how these experiences helped hone my skills to sell a product. Reading people’s personalities and choosing which shoes to bring down to them based on this does take some skill and experience. By placing these statistics next to amount of dollars sold, my value as an employee can be calculated and assessed. This all may have been some buzzed logic conjured up by Conway to make me feel great about myself at that moment, but nonetheless, I still think that there’s a great lesson to be learned.
A firm handshake won’t cut it anymore. Knowing what you’re capable of constitutes as essential knowledge, but knowing how to show that to others is absolutely necessary. So even though I’m two years older than Conway, he was able to teach me a critical lesson in being successful in any aspect of life in our short five minute conversation. And for those to whom this isn’t news, maybe this can serve just as a friendly reminder! Here’s to progress.
– Gabriel Oigbokie
GOOD FOR THE SOUL 