I’ve become increasingly distressed over the years by the number of students and recent grads who complain to me that their jobs or internships contain too much “grunt work.” (Interestingly, these complaints have not slowed at all in the bad economy, when one might think any job, including one that requires some gruntage, is better than none.)
First, let’s define this yucky phrase. According to a (possibly dubious?) entry on Wikipedia, the phrase “grunt work” originates from the military and refers to the job of stringing a “grunt” pole between two trees and digging a trench along one side so soldiers can use it as an outdoor toilet.
Eeuw. If that’s the grunt work you’re being asked to do during your summer internship, I agree that you should totally complain.
However, in my experience what people describe as “grunt work” usually entails things like answering phones, running out to Starbucks, filing documents, collating presentations, distributing mail and, as was a major daily task in my first college internship, visiting up to three cafes a day to find the exact flavor of fat-free muffin my boss wanted for breakfast that day. (Yes, that was back in the old days when people ate carbs.)
If these are the kinds of tasks you’re being asked to do, my advice is to accomplish them with the same energy and work ethic you apply to any other task you’re given. Since I sense that some of you might be rolling your eyes at this advice (especially those of you who have just graduated from college where you held multiple leadership positions), here are my reasons why completing menial tasks well is sometimes more important than shining on big projects.
Read the rest of this post in the Experis Career Center…
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