Show Your Boss Everything You Actually Do
How to make your invisible work visible
As a journalist, I never really know before I start a story how it’s going to pan out. All manner of things can — and often do — go wrong: Sources flake; recorders malfunction; pandemics put the world on lockdown. Sometimes, filing a draft feels like crossing the finish line of an uphill marathon.
Every job has its own version: Customers are irrational; orders get lost; pandemics (still) put the world on lockdown. For many years, when I was struggling through one of those disasters beyond my control, I’d keep it to myself — after all, I reasoned, this was my job, and it was on me to get it done. I believed that my hard work would be evident in my output.
But the older I got, the more I began to notice a pattern: In every job, the colleagues who advanced the quickest tended to be the ones who called attention to their hurdles and made sure their managers were aware of everything they’d done to get past them. In a recent Twitter thread, one piece of career advice stuck out to me: “Make your invisible work visible.” In other words, show your boss everything you do.
Stuck in our own homes, it can feel draining just to get through the workday. We’re also grappling with the realization that we’re in this for the long haul — which means…
