[bob1029]

If you ignore the titles and just start taking care of things, a whole world opens up that is invisible to most.

Doing things even when you aren't sure if they are your responsibility is precisely what makes you a responsible person. Encouraging everyone around you to do trivial things like bringing the shopping cart back is actually a big deal. And the most effective way to do this is to just do it. Park as far as you possibly can from the store and walk that thing for a solid 3 minutes both ways. Find one with a really noisy wheel. Make a whole production out of it. Leading by example is unbelievably effective if you lean into it just a little bit.

But this could be anything. If you see a customer waiting on a response and you know exactly what they need to be told, go tell them. Don't make them wait until next Thursday when their CSR gets back from vacation. If you aren't sure about the email, draft it, send it to your boss/peer/etc. for review. About 50% of the time they'll say "yep looks good please send" the other half they'll just take care of it right then and CC you on it. Either way you come out looking good.

The "not my job" crowd is simply not thinking ahead at all. You don't get paid more money the microsecond you go above and beyond. It takes persistent investment in this bucket before someone with actual power decides to help you out. There's not a progress bar or quest log you can review. It just happens. One day you get a phone call and that's that. There's no lead up or anticipation most of the time. You just have to be good all the time and expect that you are being observed. That's the only thing I've found that works over strategic timescales.

[masonliyu]

I’m reminded of something passed around Google’s SRE org when I was there:

https://sre.google/resources/practices-and-processes/no-hero...

I agree with the spirit of your comment, but I think that there are circumstances where being the one to pick up the slack results in being taken advantaged of, whether intentional or unintentional on the part of the advantage taker.

In your CSR example, picking up the slack or helping out a couple times when you are equipped to do so is good, but if it turns into a longstanding pattern of hiding what might be an organizational problem (maybe that CSR is really assigned too many customers to keep up) or an individual problem, then this mode of working can do more harm than good in the long term.

[Kye]

>> "Encouraging everyone around you to do trivial things like bringing the shopping cart back is actually a big deal."

Got three shopping carts launched at me while doing this once by confused people who revealed how they behave toward people socially expected to endure abuse and low pay. The problem often goes deeper than responsibility.

[plumbees]

> Park as far as you possibly can from the store and walk that thing for a solid 3 minutes both ways. Find one with a really noisy wheel. Make a whole production out of it. Leading by example is unbelievably effective if you lean into it just a little bit.

I might be a little base, how does parking as far from the store show 'leadership'?

What's complaining about a noise wheel going to accomplish other than being like a Karen? (noisy wheel might be non important to the day to day and literally just noise.)

I think I'm missing context as I can't get the grocery store scenario from another comment out of my head.

[plumbees]

Also I do understand the whole, if you lead you will be respected bit; but counter act that with mega corps that will let your wage stagnate and being a leader might be detrimental to your work/life balance given how much is taken for what is given. (tldr: Unfair wages kill motivation and leadership)