Expectations At Work Quotes & Sayings

Okay, so all a woman has to do is ignore society's expectations, be ambitious, sit at the table, work hard, and then it's smooth sailing all the way. What could possibly go wrong? — Sheryl Sandberg

You don't always get what you expect. I wish someone, sometime when I was growing up, would have told me what expectations would get me ...
Our parents, schools, everyone tells us things will be a certain way when we're adults and if they're not that way, we should make them be; or at least pretend. But after a certain point that just doesn't work. — Chris Crutcher

Sylvia possessed a deeply conditioned respect for authority. She wanted desperately to live up to the expectations of a society that viewed her as a bright, charming, enormously talented disciple of bourgeois conformity. On the other hand, she ached to experience life in all its grim and beautiful complexity. The poetic eye was always at work examining the nuance and measuring obscure detail, turning conversation into ultimatum (Steiner) — Elizabeth Winder

There is something holy about taking up the task of stewarding a life, especially our own. If we come to this work at all, we must come with humble expectations and a willingness to be led. We submit to the process, trusting that the science is sound, even when what we're called to do hurts. — Russ Ramsey

It's simple. If you go to see 'Saturday Night Fever' expecting it to be good, it's a corker. However, if you go expecting it to be a crock of shit, it's that, too. Thus 'Saturday Night Fever' can exist in two mutually opposing states at the very same time, yet only by the weight of our expectations. From this principle we can deduce that any opposing states can be governed by human expectation - even, as in the case of retro-deficit-engineering, the present use of a future technology."
"I think I understand that. Does it work with any John Travolta movie?"
"Only the artistically ambiguous ones such as 'Pulp Fiction' or 'Face/Off.' 'Battlefield Earth' doesn't work, because it's a stinker no matter how much you think you're going to like it, and 'Get Shorty' doesn't work either, because you'd be hard-pressed not to enjoy it, irrespective of any preconceived notions. — Jasper Fforde

But elimination will only happen if all countries - nuclear and non-nuclear states - genuinely work towards this result. Nuclear states must abolish their arsenals, as was indicated by the unanimous opinion of the international Court of Justice, the highest international tribunal. The five nuclear states seem to expect others to refrain from obtaining bombs while at the same time maintaining their own caches of deadly weapons. — C. G. Weeramantry

I have argued elsewhere that DWYL is an essentially narcissistic schema, facilitating willful ignorance of working conditions of others by encouraging continuous self-gratification. I have also argued that DWYL exposes its adherents to exploitation, justifying unpaid or underpaid work by throwing workers' motivations back at them; when passion becomes the socially accepted motivation for working, talk of wages or reasonable scheduling becomes crass. This book examines the many expectations about what work can provide under the DWYL creed, and the sacrifices that workers make in order to meet those expectations. — Miya Tokumitsu

At times what you expect and what happens don't match.
The faster you accept and adapt to what happened & work towards creating what you believed, that what you expected gets created in a whole new way..! — Sujit Lalwani

With every lecture, you're forced to look again at every choice you've made
over the lesson-by-lesson chain of your entire life. And after all these years, you see how little you have to work with, how limited your life and education have been. How scant was your courage and curiosity. Not to mention your expectations. — Chuck Palahniuk

That incredible bubble and high expectations built at festivals can work against a film. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

Because when you work with a different team, the expectations are different and then you deliver in a very different way. You look back at it and you're proud of yourself. And when the same people come in and you do the same thing, it's boring. You could re-envision it again and again but when the new chemistry of ideas comes in, something happens as a team. — A.R. Rahman

I have been fortunate to work in places where people have a passion for their work. At HHS the passion sort of exceeds passion - it's a vocation ... I obviously knew that there were certainly some challenges that I would be taking on both with the work and the politics. [But] I probably did not have the right expectation level with regard to the number and volume of crises that would occur. — Sylvia Mathews Burwell

I've never had high expectations of my work and I certainly am not going to let that plague my thoughts. I'm just going to continue to choose what feels right for me at the time and go with it. — Heath Ledger

I walked slowly on, without envying my companions on horseback: for I could sit down upon an inviting spot, climb to the edge of a precipice, or trace a torrent by its sound. I descended at length into the Rheinthal, or Valley of the Rhine; the mountains of Tyrol, which yielded neither in height or in cragginess to those of Appenzel, rising before me. And here I found a remarkable difference: for although the ascending and descending was a work of some labor; yet the variety of the scenes had given me spirits, and I was not sensible of the least fatigue. But in the plain, notwithstanding the scenery was still beautiful and picturesque, I saw at once the whole way stretching before me, and had no room for fresh expectations: I was not therefore displeased when I arrived at Oberried, after a walk of about twelve miles, my coat flung upon my shoulder like a peripatetic by profession.
-William Coxe — Robin Jarvis

When you have controversial parents, people have expectations about you. If every day at work I thought to myself, 'How does this relate to them?' I'd be paralyzed. — John Podhoretz

women and mothers, there is so much pressure to be everything to everybody that we often become a slave to the expectations that we've placed on ourselves. For the sake of the story, I will call these self-imposed expectations and roles "masks." We have all worn these masks at one time or another, and it's important to recognize what masks you wear so that you can work on shedding them later in the book. — Patrina Wisdom

Amazing." Hi stripped off his shirt, wrung it out. "Score one for your honker." "Thanks, I think." I cocked my chin at Hi's substantial midsection. "Nice abs." "Yeah, I work out twice a month. No expectations. But stop hitting on me, it's embarrassing. — Kathy Reichs

Back to the books. The world's largest bell was built in 1733 in Moscow, and weighed in at more than four hundred thousand pounds. It never rang - it was broken by fire before it could be struck. What a sad little story. All that work, all that planning, all those expectations - then nothing. Now it just sits there in Russia, a big metallic symbol of failure. I have a moment of silence for the silent bell. — A. J. Jacobs

If I want to know how I'm doing at work, I don't wait for a pat on the back; I ask the people who will give me a clear, objective opinion. When I need a real, arms-wrapped-around-me hug, I go to someone who does that. I stopped getting disappointed by my expectations from non-huggers. — Chandra Wilson

Our age makes higher demands of solidarity and benevolence on people today than ever before. Never before have people been asked to stretch out so far, and so consistently, so systematically, so as a matter of course, to the stranger outside the gates" (p. 695). How do we manage to do it? Or how could we? "Well, one way is that performance of these standards has become part of what we understand as a decent, civilized human life" (p. 696). The mechanism then becomes shame: to not meet these expectations is not only to be abnormal but almost inhuman. One can see this at work in a heightened version of holier-than-Thou: You don't recycle (gasp)? You use plastic shopping bags (horror)? You don't drive a Prius (eek!)? "You won't wear the ribbon?!"44 This has to also be seen in light of Taylor's earlier analysis of the sociality of mutual display and the self-consciousness it generates (pp. 481-82). So what we get is justice chic. — James K.A. Smith

It was excruciating at first, getting over Trip. Not that I ever really did, mind you. But during those first years, I had no other choice but to go on with my life. Because do you ever really get over your first love? Even during your twenties, when you experience that initial taste of being a grown-up ... that teenager still lives inside you. That person you were before the world started telling you how to be, what to say, who you should be with. Before you lost yourself in expectations and plans, and could just be a work-in-progress with only the vaguest results in mind. — T. Torrest

What's the first sign of a lurking, hidden expectation you didn't know you had? Pain! People don't do what we want, things don't happen quickly enough, the weather doesn't cooperate, our bodies don't cooperate. Why are these moments so painful? Because our minds are focused on a static, unchanging, me-centric picture while the dynamic unfolding of a broader life continues around us. There is nothing wrong with expectations per se, as it's appropriate to set goals and work, properly, towards their fruition. But the instant we feel pain over life not going "my way," our expectations have clearly taken an improper turn. Any moment you feel resistance or pain, look for
and then let go of
the hidden expectation. Practice giving yourself over to what "you" don't want. Let the line at the store be long. Let the other person interrupt you. Let the nervousness make you shake. Be where your body is, not where your mind is trying to take you. — Guy Finley

I know most of my records are real good but I know that there are definitely things I would've changed at the end of the day. I work on things forever, and there are things I wish I didn't do, but ultimately I know the records are good. I kind of let go of big expectations, maybe because hopefully that means if I don't have them, that it'll do really well, but you just never know. — Kurt Vile

It is a hard message to swallow at first blush because it brings into question everything that we think we are, which for the most part seems to come from what we identify with, our bodies, our thoughts, our feelings, our relationships, our values, our work, our expectations of what is "supposed" to happen and how things are "supposed" to work out for me in order for me to be happy, our stories of where we came from and where we are going and of who we are. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

I feel sometimes constrained by the expectation that the work should be solely political. I try to create a type of work that is at the service of my own set of criteria, which have to do with beauty and a type of utopia that in some ways speaks to the culture I'm located in. — Kehinde Wiley

Some people are natural inventors who prefer to work without the pressure and expectations of the later business phases. Others are ambitious and see innovation as a path toward senior management. Still others are particularly skilled at the management of running an established business, outsourcing, and bolstering efficiencies and wringing out cost reductions. People should be allowed to find the kinds of jobs that suit them best. — Eric Ries

Maybe it was just me shorting myself to hedge my expectations. As a fan, I was excited about the project. If you look at the body of work for the people involved, I was excited about the project, but I didn't really know. There were people saying, "I think we're going to be part of something huge." — Steven Yeun

Apart from this ultimate hope, the created world would be a dungeon of despair for God's children. But faith animates our lives with an eschatological anticipation of the presence and glory of Christ. We will not find our full and permanent happiness here. Nor will we find Christian joy automatically, like a daily newspaper at the door. God intends for us to find joy kinetically, in action, as we work out our faith with fear and trembling, as we fight the good fight of faith, as we worship, fellowship, and engage in all the various dynamics of the Christian life together.62 But even in this, our hope of eternal joy sobers our expectations for the joy we can expect to experience in this life. — Tony Reinke

It's a lot to live up to. These pressures of achieving. From the moment you're born, you're pounded with the expectations of what you need to actualize in order to become a success. Go to college. Get married. Raise a family. It's what you're supposed to do. The plans you're supposed to make. The life you're supposed to live. Diverge from the norm and you're frowned upon. Questioned. Shunned. There's something wrong with you if you're not interested in improving yourself. If you can't make a commitment of marriage. If you don't want to have children. So people earn a college degree so they can get a good job. They work at a job they hate just to earn a living. They spend two months' salary on an engagement ring. They pop out a couple of kids they don't really want just so they can fit in. Because it's what their parents did. Because it's what society expects you to do. Because it's safer to take the same path everyone else has traveled. Truth is, no one's listening to Robert Frost. — S.G. Browne

The lessons you are meant to learn are in your work. To see them, you need only look at the work clearly - without judgment, without need or fear, without wishes or hopes. Without emotional expectations. Ask your work what it needs, not what you need. Then set aside your fears and listen, the way a good parent listens to a child — David Bayles

PREFACE TO THE PAPERBACK EDITION How much work did you do today that you will be proud of tomorrow? I don't mean just how you handled the big things, but also how you addressed the little, seemingly insignificant ones. Did you make progress on what matters most to you, or did you allow the buzz, busyness, and expectations of others to squelch your passion and focus? I've been asking these questions of others and myself each day for more than a decade, and they are the main reason I originally felt compelled to write Die Empty. Through my work I've encountered many teams of brilliant, sharp, amazing, talented people who have at some point "settled in" or begun coasting on past success. Unfortunately, — Todd Henry