Don’t Leave Work Until Five (by Ashley Anderson Hill)

My husband had to be rushed to the hospital this evening (he’s having severe stomach pain) so my daughter Ashley agreed to cover tonight’s blog post for me. Not gonna sugar coat it, it’s been a rough night…but I’m grateful for the doctors and nursing who are working hard to figure out what’s wrong. Here’s Ashley’s blog:

Don’t Leave Work Until Five

​In 2019 I learned a very valuable lesson about the payoff that comes when you have a good work ethic. 

I had just started a new job and saw that everyday employees and managers would leave before 5pm when the workday was over. Some would leave early to “beat traffic”, others would leave to “get home to their kids”, and frankly others just left because everyone else was doing it. We all signed up for the 8 to 5 salary, and we all got the 8 to 5 salary whether we stayed until 5 or not. So did it REALLY matter to stay until the day was over when everyone else was leaving? 

Yes. Staying until 5pm on the dot made all the differencefor me. I made a decision early on that I wanted to be known for being reliable and having integrity in the workplace. This meant showing up at 8am and staying until 5pm. Though it seems like a small (and probably no-brainer) decision, it provided me with opportunities that the other employees and managers didn’t get. Now to be clear again, everyone walked away with the same paycheck. But what others didn’t get was valuable conversations with leadership that lead me to new insights, knowledge, and opportunities.

It’s pretty well-known that the hardest workers are usually the CEO, founders, leaders, or owners of a business. They built the company because they love the grind and find fulfillment in solving problems. Turns out they are usually also the ones who stay last, shut the lights off, and lock the doors.

Since it had become the company norm to leave early, I would start to find myself left in the office with just the leaders, and conversation would always strike up. They’d ask questions, I’d ask questions, and I’d always walk away with a new nugget of inspiration or information.  Fulfillment came in a different form than money. It came in waves of knowledge, encouragement, and motivation.

I can’t recall all the conversations I had with leadership or insights I gained by the time I left the organization, but I do recall walking out every night after 5 feeling like those extra 15minutes that I could have been beating traffic were better spent exactly where I was and committed to be. I was the one who walked out every night with a greater reward.

-Today’s post written by Ashley Anderson Hill (daughter of Amy Rees Anderson)

~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book “What Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business & Life” )

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