Tell me about a time you took the initiative without being asked.

For two years I worked 12 hours a week at my university library's tech help desk. My job was to answer whoever was next in line. In my second semester the line was often 20 minutes long, and I kept answering the same questions. Nobody had asked me to look into it, and the desk kept no record of what people asked. So for three weeks I kept a tally of every question I got. More than half were the same four problems. I wrote four one-page guides with screenshots on my own time. Then I showed my supervisor, Dana, the tally and the drafts together. She put the guides on the library site and on a stand by the printers. The line got a lot shorter after that, and Dana had the other student workers start keeping a tally too. What I learned is to count before I propose anything.

For two years I worked 12 hours a week at my university library's tech help desk. My job was to answer whoever was next in line. In my second semester the line was often 20 minutes long, and I kept answering the same questions. Nobody had asked me to look into it, and the desk kept no record of what people asked. So for three weeks I kept a tally of every question I got. Out of 412 questions, 58% were the same four problems. They were printing from a laptop, getting on the campus wifi, resetting a password and setting up citation software. I had to decide how far to go on my own. Changing how the desk worked wasn't my call, but I didn't want to bring my supervisor only a complaint. I wrote four one-page guides with screenshots on my own time, and I tested each one on three friends who had never done the task. Then I showed my supervisor, Dana, the tally and the drafts together. She put the guides on the library site and on a stand by the printers. I kept the tally for another month to see if it had worked. Those four problems fell from 58% of questions to 31%, and the line I timed at two o'clock went from about 20 minutes to 9. Dana had the other student workers start keeping a tally too. What I learned is to count before I propose anything, and to bring my boss in before I change something that's hers to decide.