Be careful what you get good at.

That’s what someone told me at my graduation, before I set off into the workplace.

What silly advice, I thought. I just graduated from Harvard and I’m a Type-A, firstborn child. Of course I want to be good at everything.

When I started my first job at an ad agency, the entry-level employee ahead of me got to pass off one of her recurring tasks to me—maintaining a binder with all of our client projects in it. The binder had to be kept up to date every single day so that anyone on the senior leadership team could immediately skim through it. Most days, nobody ever looked at it. But every once in a while, they would. And I wanted that binder to be immaculate. I put in easy-to-read tabs, organized by date, client name, and color. It was the best looking-binder on the planet. But it was tedious work, and I was looking forward to handing it off to the next new hire.

So when another entry-level employee started a few months later, I was excited that I would have the opportunity to pass it off to her. However, my boss said, “Randi— change of plans—you’re SO good at the binders that we want you to keep that job. We just can’t imagine someone else being as well-organized!” Instead, the new entry-level hire got staffed on a project that I had been secretly coveting, because it was deemed that I didn’t have enough time in my schedule for both.

And that’s when it hit me.

Be careful what you get good at.

Those binders didn’t need to be so spectacularly beautiful. I could have done a great job that met everyone’s needs with them, but that didn’t single me out as being “the binder girl.” Because I got good at the wrong thing, I missed an opportunity to pass off hours and hours of work each week. I could have used that time to take on more challenging, meaningful projects. I could have been advancing my career rather than hole-punching and making photocopies for another six months.

Now, I’m not saying that this is an excuse to slack off or submit subpar work. We should all strive to do our best in our careers, and every job comes with some degree of grunt work that isn’t “fun.” If hole-punching is part of your daily routine, do it to the best of your abilities, and always with a smile.

Part of this was definitely my manager’s fault. Instead of seeing me as “the awesome binder girl,” she should have seen a promising young woman in her first job out of school who went above and beyond to do great work. She should have realized that it would be better for the firm if I applied my work ethic and skills to more meaningful tasks than what was essentially an office arts and crafts project.

But most of this was my own doing. Being a good worker means being proactive about creating opportunities for yourself. It means thinking of additional things you could be doing, and going above and beyond your delegated responsibilities. Whereas I saw myself as a go-getter, putting above-and-beyond effort into that binder as a proxy for showcasing that I’d be good at other, harder projects, what if I had used some of that extra creative energy thinking of other ways to support my boss, our team, and our clients? In business, you want people who are creative, who are go-getters, who create opportunities out of nothing.

So, go out into the world. And do the best darn job you can. Good work is always recognized and rewarded. But in order to get placed on the project team that catches your eye, you have to speak up and ask for it. Don’t be afraid to be assertive and let the team know what you want. You might get a “No,” but at least your manager knows that you would like to try your hand at something new in the future.

I finally realized what “Be careful what you get good at” really means: “Ask for what you want” rather than allow others to pigeonhole you into what they think you want.

So go on. Be assertive. Step outside your comfort zone.

Posted on 10/30/2013

Written by Randi Zuckerberg

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