This Week…
In this week’s lecture, we looked at Studio Etiquette. Although it was a fairly short lecture, it was a useful insight into how our behaviour in society or among members of a particular profession or group should be. As in any job, there are ways to navigate the workplace. It is important to not be a dick when working with others as it builds trust over time and makes one a better person and colleague.
The reason this lecture was important because having a good knowledge of etiquette, can help you navigate a workplace without being an annoyance or a dick simply. Having a professional etiquette will help you greatly when gaining a good opinion from your colleagues. Having a professional etiquette doesn’t mean you have to be formal, it is more of a situational thing, you be informal with people if you have been working with each other for awhile. This point is true for me in my part time job as my department manager is someone who I can be informal and have a bit of banter around, compared to when I started working there I was always very polite towards them. As time went on all the managers in the store shared the same fun and informal attitude with me, while you still have to uphold the etiquette it is a bit more relaxed with people who you have been around for awhile.
Some basic rules within the Studio
Be to be pleasant and enthusiastic. Being both pleasant and enthusiastic can not be benefitical to your own health but it can also give a good reflection of yourself to others. I found that being pleasant towards customers in my workplace gives them a great impression of me, and will usually spark a short conversation or a very sincere thank you after helping them. The reward of having people look at you postively through your positive actions and enthusiasm is one of the greatest things.
Good timekeeping. This is one of my major strengths, if anything it is what has impressed my managers the most when I started working in my workplace. I would always arrived 15-10 minutes before I was actually supposed to arrive and would normally get stuck right into the work. Even in University I also kept that time keeping, as I will always leave earlier than needed to travel down, not only to avoid any delays on the roads but once I am down on the campus I then have time to do things before class starts and I am not rushing.
Dressing appropriately. This is one that has stuck with me since high school, although in College wearing your own clothes was normal and same with university, in my work place we wear uniforms which is an easy way to stick to this rule as you have to wear a uniform. Although in design world, wearing a uniform is not common and is probably extremely rare if not never done. This means we have to take into consideration what we wear when going to our work place. Do we dress formal or informal? The answer is dress in between, not too formal and not too informal.
Use headphones for music. (at a volume you can still hear people). This one applies to my current work place as we wear headphones when the shop is closed, for health and safety reasons we can’t have both in, this is to make sure we can hear the fire alarm or in the event that the shop has to be evacuated due to a danger. I feel this rule applies anywhere that involves you working with a group of people, as you will need to communicate with each other.
Overall I found this lecture to be refreshing for rules I already knew about and also insightful to the rules I did not know where really considered.