Your job: You and your boss. (1969)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] businesses everywhere people on their way to work chances are that you're planning on getting a job soon or that you already have one [Music] [Applause] [Music] when you begin to work you find that you spend a good part of your day on the job and you see a lot of the people you work with of all these people the most important one to you is your boss whether he's the owner of the company you work for or the manager foreman or supervisor he sets the standards for your work and measuring up to those standards is a big part of your job how do workers go about measuring up partly it depends on the boss himself exactly what are his standards to find out we interviewed a number of employers and we found that they had different opinions about the fine points of doing a job but when it came to general requirements they pretty well agreed about their workers and the kind of protected from pat what do you look for when you're interviewing an employee well i look for someone who is going to be helpful and cooperative someone who can take a few orders because after all i have to follow my boss's directions i want someone who will cooperate with me here at the store selling fixing stock i'd like to find someone that is industrious someone has initiative one who is pleasant can work with his fellow men who can greet the public in a pleasant manner and performance duties without the extensive supervision ron what are some of the uh the qualities that you look for and the people that work under you here well an interest in electronics and enthusiasm to continue on with their studies and it does require studying on their own right and to feel free to come to their uh foreman with the questions that develop on the benches and everyday uh working experience mr gordon what qualities do you look for in the employees who work under you well i'm looking for people who come in looking neat and respectable and who come in with the idea of doing an honest day's work for an honest day's pay i want people who are interested in making money for themselves as well as making money for their employer first of all a girl who is very dependable and one who showed some interest in her work and asked questions uh however not too many questions because then i feel that she's just trying to impress me well we look for honest employees with good personal habits willing workers and people that have the proper attitude who when they do make a mistake are willing to admit it what are the qualities that you look for and the people that work here doctor well i think the most important points are well an interest a deep interest in the work they're doing uh the ability to follow a set routine procedure even though it may become routine after a period of time and of course the ability to learn a new procedure at any given time uh the ability to do things someone else's way even though it may necessarily may not necessarily be the way they were taught or the way they have learned summarizing these interviews and others we learned that nearly every boss has three requirements first he wants workers to be dependable to arrive on time and to work willingly at a reasonable pace second he wants workers to do the job well to ask when unsure and to take suggestions and third he wants them to do the job a certain way a way that the boss himself prefers [Applause] these seem to be reasonable expectations and by honestly measuring up to them an employee can probably get along pretty well with his boss but getting along means more than simply following a set of rules it means understanding that the boss is a key man in his business [Applause] he has his eye on the goals of his department or his company and he has set up rules and procedures that direct workers toward achieving those goals knowing this the work relationship can be looked at from two points of view the employees and the bosses in our interviews we first considered the boss's point of view we asked employers about the kinds of relationships they like to establish with employees and we heard answers like well i like to keep it on a friendly basis uh i like for the employees to listen to my instructions and anytime that they see something wrong with my instructions or think something can be run a different way or a better way i'm always glad to listen to whatever they have to suggest and what do you look for in the employees that work under you here well i look for cooperation and means to communicate with the girls and anything that they may have we like to discuss it here so when something becomes involved or there's a problem you don't mind if they come to you no i'd like for my girls to come to me and discuss any problems they may have concerning work or any other personal problems let's see well thank you it's nice talking to you it's nice talking to you too john when you're hiring a new man here uh what do you look for mostly well i look for a fellow that has a sense of responsibility and is loyal and can't say good things to promote our business and knowing mechanics is not the most important thing it's uh knowing how to wait on a customer how to talk to a customer and knowing what to say someone with loyalty and who enjoys it that's right well thank you very much this employer is reasonable about his expectations and we found most of the bosses we interviewed to be fair and reasonable people perhaps they got to be bosses for being that way as well as for being competent of course sometimes bosses like this mr morrison what do you ask of your employees here haven't helped a man that that asks me questions they've all been to school let them find out what i want unreasonable yes and a person who works for this boss can probably save himself a lot of pain and aggravation by looking for a new job yet there are as many kinds of employees as there are bosses and there may be someone who can work well under this man's supervision those are some of the expectations that bosses may have reasonable or unreasonable right or wrong in every job and every business employers look for pleasant helpful workers who can do their jobs without too much supervision workers with enthusiasm unafraid to ask their bosses questions need responsible workers who study on their own who are increasing their own earnings and those of their bosses as well people who work willingly admit their mistakes and who it's good to spend a working day with who understand that the boss himself has problems that a willing able employee can help him solve from there on understanding these expectations and getting along with the boss is up to the worker to you maybe it's your first job your first employer how will you measure up our interviewer found that how people get along with their bosses is related to how they get along with other people in authority for example consider this young man's reaction to parental authority i wonder if i could talk to you for a minute oh sure we're doing a survey on uh parents and relationships wondering when you were living at home were you able to get along with your family and accept their orders well you got to understand my parents were from the country they didn't move to the city till i was 12. they never had any education and they did things the old-fashioned way i just couldn't do everything they wanted me to who would have been dumb well what about uh your schooling were you able to take orders from your teachers i i guess i was a an independent kind of student but i had good reasons i already knew what business i wanted to go into so i couldn't see what use a lot of the courses would be every once in a while i tell my teachers this and sometimes they'd get mad at me well you've got your job now how do you get along with your boss well i guess i'm kind of disappointed with him he he doesn't know the the new ways of doing things in fact uh i've got a feeling that if it weren't for paul he wouldn't even be a boss but do you think you can accept his orders pretty readily or is it a problem for you well i try to do everything he wants but it's hard to take him seriously sometimes i just do it my way he may not like it but uh but i think he's got to admit it usually works out okay this interview and others like it suggested that people react to their bosses in ways similar to the ways in which they've reacted to parents and teachers so if you usually believe that your employer or supervisor is wrong think it over ask yourself whether you tend to think that everyone in authority is perhaps a little wrong the problem may lie not in the boss but in you yourself assuming that your reactions to authority are normal do you believe that this girl's attitude toward her boss makes sense oh she's really nice she never makes any mistakes according to me and uh she's real easy to work with i respect everything she says and tells me to do an interesting point of view and it seems wise for a young worker just starting out to do a lot of listening and learning but at the same time he may prepare for a day when his relationship with the boss will change when he has proved himself and maybe asked for his opinions or his help this sort of trust comes with time after an employee has established his loyalty and earned the boss's respect perhaps as this man has uh jim how long have you been on the uh on this particular job about a year and a half now and what is your relationship with your superiors your boss well uh when when we started out a year and a half ago although i wouldn't say it was a teaching experience nevertheless i had to go to him for everything i would go into the go to the top go to the top of the building and i would get the things that he wanted to know what was happening and i would go back to him and he would make the decision and i would right back up to the top again and convey his decision to the people who were involved now uh after a year and a half he's allowing me to do a little of this by myself on my feet in other words i'm up on top and from the past decisions he's made and my learning how he made them and the reasons i now can make them by myself in a year and a half this man has built a good relationship with his boss a give and take relationship based on the facts of the job situation to achieve this kind of relationship you should understand that the boss has an important job to do and it may help to know that the way you react to his authority depends to a large degree on how you have reacted to authority in the past once you know this getting along with the boss becomes a matter of understanding what he wants of you good performance on the job and having you be pleasant and cooperative put these requirements together and you have a pretty good picture of the average employer or supervisor how well you work with him is up to you but no matter how you handle your end of the situation it's wise to remember the quality of your work and your reaction to his authority can have a lot to do with the satisfaction you get from your [Music] job you