Category: humor

humor, inspiration, leadership, management, mindfulness, training, work life

The-Thursday-Before-The-Friday-Of-A-Long-Weekend

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This is the kind of day where people either squeeze as much work into their day as possible so that they can leave the office early tomorrow or begin coasting because the prospect of a long weekend is so tempting there’s little else to think about.  Either way you go (and I would venture to guess that there are very few who defiantly reside somewhere in the middle), own your day.  Everyone has times when they just can’t intensely focus on the work in front of them.  Conversely, our concentration is not always laser-like, powered by energy and commitment.  Just raise your hand and own it –  so that others don’t feel isolated by your focus or annoyed at your laissez-faire, possibly misunderstanding your actions completely.

It’s funny how such candor is anathema in the workplace.  Somehow it’s not ok to have an ‘off’ day. That just defies reality.  Rather than reflecting authenticity, people will try to maintain an illusion of busy-ness at all times.  One of the many things I loved about most of the people I worked with was their willingness – and trust in me – to be able to admit when their heads were elsewhere, if a project was just sapping their enthusiasm, or if they were crushing to make a deadline and needed more hands.  I have no illusions looking back, which is why I inserted the word “most”.  I had my share of coasters and boasters, people who were hell-bent on kidding me almost as much as they were kidding themselves.  I still believe that allowing people the room to move within the rhythm of their lives when possible is the far better way to go.  I was able to keep my headcount low, people cross-trained and facile by creating an environment which emphasized personal ownership of the day ahead.  And laughter – yeah, there was a lot of laughter.  And an enormous amount of  individual and collective effort.  All it took was encouraging people to raise their hands.

discretion, humor, inspiration, leadership, management, motivation, work life

“Bridesmaids” Management Lessons

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I know, it’s been awhile since I shared with you the many management lessons I learn while at the movies.  Yet as I watched Kristen Wiig dance her good-byes on SNL last Saturday, I remembered all that I gleaned from the deeply thoughtful, multi-layered and dare I say profound movie “Bridesmaids”.  Perhaps not as obtuse as Bergman, but this was her first screenplay after all.  I am sure this hasn’t been covered by Harvard Business Review because they are still debating the finer points of the movie.  So, I will offer them up first because I need not discuss this with anybody before I publish it…

1.  Just because you hand-pick some people to be part of your team, until they achieve a consistent rhythm of accomplishment through collaboration, they are merely a group.  It’s best to engage (ha – no pun intended) people with different personalities and strengths, for the synergy will be heightened.  So do the odds of potential discord – your challenge involves keeping everyone on track and focused on the goal.  If a group is left on their own too soon,  they may go out for tainted food and spend the afternoon in the bathroom.  Not a very productive outcome.

2.  Drinking is not a productive bonding activity.  As someone who used to conduct seminars on an employer’s commitment to equal employment opportunities and sexual harassment prevention, many of the examples provided involved social/work situations and alcohol.  When you’re with the team and when they’re with each other, everyone is on the company clock.  As inconvenient as that may be, it’s also the reality of the workplace.  Maybe you should consider bowling?

3.  Don’t accept medication from people you don’t really get along with.

4.  Realize that trust is an earned emotion and do whatever you can to make sure that it is never compromised.  I’ve often said that it is the foundation of every successful relationship – professional or personal.  It is also indicative of behavior that is consistent, reliable, informed and well-intended.  Most critically though – it is fragile – and difficult to restore when broken.

5.  Friends don’t let friends wallow.  Neither do really good supervisors.  Before you write-off a well-established employee, make sure you know whether a decline in performance is a result of a recent change in circumstances.  If you can help him/her – do so.  Performance does not sustain on a consistently positive trajectory – life gets in the way, bad days gets in the way, tragedy gets in the way.  We have to move past the perception that everyone’s performance gets better and better and better every day, month, year.  It’s just not true.

One last thought,  unless you’re Melissa McCarthy I don’t recommend trying to pick up a U.S. Marshall when traveling on business.

What you do on your own time, is entirely up to you.

Next movie moment?  Not sure – I’m thinking  “Star Wars” or “Snakes On A Plane”…More movie and management reviews to come…

humor, life lessons, mindfulness

Will Your Way Through Wednesday

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Three days of rainy, humid, grey makes the appeal of pulling my covers over my head very seductive.  I need to find my ’embrace the moment’ spirit … sigh, maybe after coffee.  The good news is – we made it to Hump Day and I feel it is my duty to at least start your day with a smile.  And if you don’t feel like smiling – try – it makes your endorphins happy (and if you’ve never seen a happy endorphin, you’re really missing something)..

friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, mindfulness

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

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I had lunch today with a woman who was a camper of mine 35+ years ago (yeah, makes my mouth drop open too).   She ‘found’ me on Facebook,  which had a small cascading effect of other people who remembered me from my days as a camp counselor.  The exchange of memories is arguably a topic in and of itself  –  how some remember so acutely, while others remember through a murkier lens.  But to go there, is to digress dramatically from where I think I want to go (and anyone who reads this blog knows that I have a flair for tangential thought – oh look!  A chicken!)

I recognized her immediately – she is no longer a little girl, yet the features of the little girl I thoroughly loved for multiple summers remain the same.  Love.  I loved these girls for eight weeks every summer for years – from the time I was 15 through my freshman year in college (sophomore?  – I’m one of those murky lens people).   These summers informed so much of my personal and professional narrative – the good and the less-than-good.

Summer camps sell dreams for kids – and perhaps even more so for their parents.  Eight weeks out of the city, sylvan settings (outside of the bunks that is – ‘pristine’ is not the adjective that comes to mind while girls throw wet towels on the floor rushing to get enough hair dryer time before short circuiting the system) instant camaraderie, songs, playful athletic competition, instruction in gazillion sports, kids walking arm in arm in that “Laverne & Shirley” way.  To a large extent, it’s all accurate.  What isn’t mentioned is that each child – boy or girl – is entering this fantasy land already toting some of the emotional luggage they are going to carry for the rest of their lives.  And that makes the experience remarkably unique for each person as well as remarkably similar.

I was not popular with people my age.  Don’t misunderstand – I was well-known, I was ‘ok’, but I was never going to be cool enough to hang with the people in my peer group.  My saving graces included singing, being really committed to the kids and not pushing the social limits of a system I didn’t fully understand.  I’d sneak cigarettes behind the bunks with one girl, keep the secrets of a lot of people and outwardly accept that I was available at the behest of anyone who needed to talk.  As much as I loved those kids, I remember feeling pretty lonely most of the time and looked forward to being “On Duty” at night, for that way I didn’t have to go up to the canteen and realize that while people were in various stages of hooking up, I’d have no one to talk to.

There’s the backdrop – metaphorically great weather but for when the rains of adolescence pounded my skin.  And here’s the gift of the epilogue – I sat with one of my ‘campers’ who is now a peer.  I could have talked with her for hours.  She is an amazing human being, with a full and colorful life, enormous talent and an adored partner.  And her memories of me were of how much I cared, the perception she and others share that I was ‘there’ for those kids and that my presence was genuine.  She never saw my bungling and awkwardness – how could she?  Though I was convinced everyone saw my clumsy efforts at inclusion, she viewed me  through the filter of her little girl vulnerabilities and insecurities – and she felt love.  I have said before that we don’t see ourselves as others do.  What a gift it is when others see you with far kinder eyes than you could ever imagine yourself.  I think that is the beauty of ‘old love’ – it doesn’t try to impress, it doesn’t hyperventilate at the mention of a name.  Old love graces you with an air-brushed portrait of your best self.  It is comfortable with who you are, because it is so sure of who you were – and the distinction between the two are not as stark as you think.  I love L for giving me that today.  Old love – I think I’ll take it.

humor, life lessons, love, mindfulness, parenting

I Am SO Hating Hallmark

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Each year I swear this  isn’t going to happen…as the days tick down I steel myself.   At this point my emotional armor is ostensibly secure and unyielding.  I am prepared for battle and I will emerge victorious.  Hallmark – you’re going down.

And I see the commercial where all these ‘moms’ (in quotes for I don’t really know if they are moms) look into the camera and implore their kids to ‘just’ – “just tell me you’re proud of me”, “just tell me I’m doing this right”, “just tell me you love me”, “just tell me I matter to you”…and I dissolve into a weeping fool.  My steely protection melts, my waterproof mascara fails miserably (note to cosmetic companies – I would be a good tester for your waterproof eye makeup) and as I gulp, I curse the fact that yet again they got me.  Dammit.

I’m great in a crisis – if you need someone stoic, calm and focused, call me.  Give me a love story, a happy ending – no matter how predictable, expressions of affection and/or appreciation and I’m an embarrassment.  Although I realize this dates me,  I cried during the last five minutes of “The Trouble With Angels” when Hayley Mills decided to become a nun.  Let’s not even talk about “The Parent Trap”, “Dumbo”…

The Trouble with Angels (film)
The Trouble with Angels (film) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are other commercials airing here that press my emotional buttons too,  but Hallmark represents all of those advertisers that are thriving by making saps like me cry.  Shame on you.  I’m a mom – I don’t think you’re supposed to reduce me to tears and have me feel stupid for doing so simultaneously.  I don’t begrudge any holiday – prepackaged or otherwise – which encourages people to acknowledge their love for one another.  I’ve really been blessed with the relationships I have with my sons – and we have always been generously affectionate and articulate about our feelings for each other.  I’m completely crazy about them,  proud of the men they are, enthralled by their stories and thankful that they still want to share them with me.  I love the women they have chosen to share their journeys and relish the time I have with them too.

And if I’m going to cry thinking about Mother’s Day, that’s what I’d like to cry about.  This indescribable love that grabs me by the throat, the sensory memories I have of my babies after bath time, their giggles before their voices changed and their dirty jokes after their voices changed, their delight when they eclipsed me in height,  little hands hugging my neck, singing to them at night and sloppy kisses that would leave my cheeks smudged and wet…

There are thousands upon thousands of moments in a lifetime that I would rather cry over and a Hallmark commercial isn’t one of them.  Yet I have not figured out a way to steel myself from the trite advertisements for love, which in and of themselves somehow minimize what is in my heart.  So until we get past Sunday, I think I’ll leave the tv off, avoid the card store and just look forward to seeing the kids over the weekend.

friendship, humor, life lessons, mindfulness

Monday Afternoon Musing…

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Perhaps if I were a different sort

I wouldn’t talk to my dogs or look for cohorts

Seeking out people of similar mind –

Or dissimilar mind, as long as they’re kind.

 

I’d contemplate the beauty of growing wisteria

And wonder far less about human mysteria

Why people behave as they are oft wont to do

In ways that spread more aches than the flu-est of flus.

 

I’d write with more deftness and amazing fluidity

That would guarantee greater financial liquidity

My ego would withstand all but the greatest of slights

Ergo my emotional baggage would be surprisingly light

 

Alas and alack and I might add anon

The conclusion to this is already foregone

At this point it is best to make peace with myself

With my heart sized enormous and the height of an elf..

humor, inspiration, life lessons, mindfulness

They Say It’s Only A Super Moon

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I like the term ‘super moon’ – it suggests that the moon can be even better than it typically is.  It is more than a catalyst for hundreds of songs, more than the provider of the perfect aerial glow under which millions of first kisses take on magical qualities and so much more than the man who lives there.

It’s a Super Moon.  It can do anything.  I stared at it last night for a long time, marveling at the larger space it assumed in the night sky.  It defiantly shone through the clouds that tried to minimize its impressiveness; the clouds didn’t have a chance.  I made a wish – after all, if one wishes on the first star in the night sky, isn’t is possible that when the moon is feeling super, it may be equally accommodating?  I figured it couldn’t hurt.   I hedged my bets though – I kept my star wish, my silently spoken prayers and if I walked around with salt,  I would have thrown some over my shoulder for good measure.  None of that diminished my awe at the magnified brilliance of the moon – it reflected its light insistently and I for one couldn’t argue the point.  It was the Super-est of Moons.

friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, mindfulness

Thoughtful Thursday

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Before I head off for the last of the current Thursday training classes, I wanted to send you a “Happy Thursday” and a thought for the day…Personally?  I’ve met my share of people who I wished would go climb the nearest tree – but it wasn’t because of their mental acuity.  Excel in your realm;  at the least have a good day.

friendship, humor, inspiration, life lessons, mindfulness

For You

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With apologies to Joyce Kilmer, Dr. Seuss and Ogden Nash…

 

I think that I shall never view

A you as perfectly you than you

You’re almost perfect which seems more than fine

Any more than that and you’d be viewed as Divine

You’re angry and snarky, you’re happy and joyful

You’re goofy and troubled and giggly and soulful

Your days run the gamut from perfect to lousy

Some days you’re awake; others you’re drowsy

There are moments you’re sure that you must be insane

And if so, then my friend we are one and the same

 

The point of this post – very short, mildly witty

is that some days are diamonds while others are shitty

And no matter which day yours is fated to be

There’s something to gain which your eyes may not see

The knowledge that moments pass quicker each year

And it’s better to hold them all nearer than near

You’re you-ness conspires to handle your load

Whether feeling quite princely or more like a toad

And regardless you really could not be more grand

And for this, I for one give you one rousing hand!

friendship, humor, life lessons

The Knights Of The Round Table – A Brief Introduction

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Happy Monday my friends!  Given that I have a penchant to talk about, to and with them I considered it only fair to introduce you to the Knights Of The Round Table.  Their loyalty to the kingdom is unmatched, their love unparalleled and their wisdom almost beyond that which we mere mortals can embrace.  I am sure you will hear more about them at some point or another over the course of our times together, so may I present Sirs Archibald and Theodore…

The Round Table…

The Knights defend the castle with nobility and courage from falling leaves, advancing squirrels and the occasional bunny (with the caveat that the bunny must be quite small and not advance).   They nobly entertain the King and our Princes;  and their devotion is inestimable (especially for their handmaiden…er…handmatron…look, I can’t be the Queen, there’s way too much testosterone around here, and besides I don’t think the Queen cooks, so you’ll have to excuse the hierarchical departure), and their lessons so universal they need not be taught in English.

I take your leave so I may provide them with their morning meal.  Then I will enjoy some highly caffeinated beverage before I post any further entries.   The joy of the morning to you all!