In the past five years my job description has evolved into an amalgam of once individual positions, now viewed as a one-person juggling act.  When asked what I do for a living, the answer has become complicated.  I am a Sales Manager-Marketing Director-Information Technologies Developer-Public Relations Officer.  Whew!  Try fitting that on to a business card.  I am not alone, as many companies have down sized, streamlined processes and automated tasks in order to do more with less.  There is a strong chance that your job title is equally as hyphenated as mine.  If your job title looks anything like mine, then you too probably spend your day going from zero to hero, back to zero and then hero again, in what seems to be a constantly churning cycle much like the waves of the ocean.  For this, I applaud you!  If you are unable to relate, let me share with you the energy your “creative” staff has to emote each day.

A sale is the art of motivation.  You motivate consumers to make decisions based often on emotion coupled with provided information on the feature, benefits and value of the item(s) you have for sale.  You motive your peers to become or further develop their role as a member of a sales team, which requires the cohesive energies of all parties to progress.  You motivate your management team to continue to provide the tools, products and pathways to continue the success of team and for yourself.  Despite all the motivating that occurs, there is still rejection.  Overcoming rejection takes even more motivation and endurance.  All this motivation, endurance and perseverance must be self-generated.

Marketing is complicated recipe of events that occur in a specific order in order build and strength branding, produce qualified leads and further nurture existing customers.  Being a Marketing Director is like being a research chemist.....you try and little of this with a little of that, wait a few hours and test to see if you got the desired result.  If you did, then you will probably celebrate quickly and with little fanfare.  If not, you make notes of what you did and you go back to the drawing board to analyze and speculated and come up with what you believe will be the right formula to test in the lab.  It can be a painful cycle of trying and trying before you succeed.  And once you succeed, you cannot rest on your laurels because you always have to be finding the new formula to improve upon your old successes. 

Information Technologies Development is a spider web of tying data points together, integrating databases for knowledge share, creating logics for reporting and producing safeguards that anticipate all possible scenarios.  All of these tasks must occur in real time and without the slightest error or discretion.  If an miscalculation is made or the system breaks down, there is intense pressure to make an accurate fix and make it quick while the eyes of your work mates peer at your from their idle workspaces .  Imagine a house with a could dozen children with thousands of Legos and your responsibility is know where each Lego is at any given time, be able to adjust your inventory for Legos added or lost without your awareness, manage all squabbles over Legos and providing engineering and educational assistance to all building projects.

Public Relations Officer/Executive was cited by CNBC as one of the most stressful jobs of 2013, fifth only behind positions in the military, firefighting and flying a commercial plane.   Public relations includes brand management, reputation supervision, company awareness, customer service resolutions and any other spin directive that keeps a company in the spot light in a positive way.  Each accomplishment is quickly overshadowed by the request for something bigger or better.  Every problem is the sole responsibility of this post.  All complaints land on the desk of this employee.  There are no nine to five guidelines since the media is never at rest.  This job is also full of rejection, as the media is a fickled friend.     

When anyone on your team appears to be teetering, consider all the hats they might be wearing, the stress of juggling all the pressure, the roller coaster ride of emotions and all that they do with little gratitude.  A slight amount of empathy, a measure of thankfulness and a pinch of appreciation might just go a long way into strengthening what could become your workplace ally.

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