When God revealed the secret of workplace success to Bender the robot

The Planet Express crew

There is an episode of Futurama where Bender, the robot crew member of the Planet Express spaceship, is accidentally fired into deep space. As he speeds into infinity, he becomes the home to a microscopic civilisation which he inadvertently destroys after they start worshiping him as a deity.

With all the life on him wiped out, Bender continues to drift entirely alone until in a far corner of the universe he bumps into God. This gives him the opportunity to ask where he went wrong. As he sees it, when he tried to give people what they asked for, it resulted in their extinction.

I watched the episode again recently, and, as it always does, God’s reply made me laugh. He says, in a suitably booming voice full of gravitas, 

"When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all."

I actually think this is really good advice for anyone in the workplace. Work can feel a bit of a thankless task sometimes. But, actually that’s part of the point – if you are doing what you are meant to be doing then everyone around you should be experiencing work without much hassle. People who don't get noticed often don't get thanked. 

But not being noticed isn't a bad thing. Most of the time, the bumps in our experience of work are caused by people not getting things right. Inadequate planning, or delayed decision-making, or subpar delivery, or missing deadlines, all cause problems for everyone else on the team. Similarly, negative experiences of services are almost all due to things not going well - every complaint is pointing out a flaw in the experience.

But when everyone is doing their job correctly, things just happen without anyone really noticing. If the system works the way it should then people don’t notice the system. The stuff people need to do their jobs is there for them to do their jobs. The things that service users need to happen, happen.

And often, when you do everything right that you are meant to do, people won’t really know whether you have done anything at all.