What I Do

"If you ran a bookstore, and it was five o'clock, would you just lock the doors and go home?" This was the question I heard dozens of times when I ran a book warehouse. It was one of the favorites of my co-managers during interviews of perspective employees. He asked it of not just potential employees, but of potential shareholders of the company. This was an employee-owned company, and everyone who passed their initial vetting probation was asked to buy in to own an equal number of shares. In this particular version of the experiment, the newest employee had the same voting interest as the most senior. Bernie Sanders would have loved it.
But getting back to that question: The correct and accepted answer was, "No. I would stick around after the doors were locked, clean up, and prepare for the next day." Or something like that. It was my co-manager's opinion, as a shareholder and veteran of hundreds of these interviews that we were not just interviewing warehouse workers but fellow shareholders.
It was a heady experience, back in those days. Happily for me I brought my hardcore Protestant Work Ethic with me when I was initially interviewed to come and pack boxes. I had six months to prove myself in order to become a shareholder. I did that and then not long after I ascended rather abruptly up this odd corporate ladder. I went through a more intense version of that initial interview to get a desk in the manager's office. Not that I spent a lot of time there, since my ethos suggested that working alongside my fellow workers and shareholders continued to prove my commitment to the company. I came in early. I stayed late. I took my management work home with me. I was eventually rewarded for all this effort with a seat on the Board of Directors.
Apparently, I had passed the audition.
Now, years after the doors of that experiment closed and my tenure as a public school teacher has been affirmed, I think of that question. I am still trying to answer it, as best I can. I come in early. I stay late. I work alongside my fellow teachers as well as administrators, parents and custodians. I act like I own the place.
Which I do, after a fashion. I stick around clean up, and get prepared for the next day. It's what I do.