Grateful Friday... better late than never

How do you learn?

It's something we've been discussing at work fairly often lately. Me, I'm a hands-on, drop me in the fire kind of learner. I can't listen to a lecture, I won't pick up a bit of it. I can't watch a presentation, my mind will wander far, far away. Explain something to me once, maybe twice if it's complicated, and then let me go. I'll make mistakes the first couple times, but then I'm fine, because I learn from my mistakes and from figuring out the steps on my own. I think part of this tendency is because I feel like my version of doing things, my steps down the road to completion, are better than anyone else's, and I don't want to get stuck doing something exactly the way someone else told me to do it just because they told me to. There's always a more efficient way-- my way.

There are people out there who need lectures though, who need to hear something over and over to know how to do it, who are afraid of making mistakes and so want to be hand held through the process the first few times. We've got a new staff member like that right now, and he's tiring. I try not to get frustrated, but the questions.... oh, the questions. He usually has the right answer, he's just so afraid he's wrong that he holds it back. He has no confidence. On the other hand, a different new staff member just asked to be "let go" so we let her go, and she's flying solo and doing just fine.

Can you tell I'm biased here? Again, my way.

I'm a thoughtful, processed person. I like steps, I like marking things off a checklist, I like regularity and expectations laid out in black and white. I think it makes people comfortable and gives them freedom to even exceed the expectations, or at least it does for me, so I try to provide that for other people here at work, and at home too. I have no problems at home-- my husband is a very thorough and thoughtful person as well. At work, though, sometimes I feel like the black sheep.

I was discussing with Emily how different environments can make you a slightly different person, or at least make you react in a different way from how you normally would. I'm rather bossy here at the office without really meaning to be. But things don't get done unless I lay them out in black and white and insist on them. Otherwise everyone seems to run around willy-nilly, busy, but busy doing things that would be better done in other ways by other people. We're having an executive team meeting tomorrow morning to try to set out some organizational clarity, to try to set some goals and assign them so that people are accountable, but I'm getting resistance already.

I assigned homework. I suppose that word alone is enough to make this bunch run for the hills, but the point of it was to save valuable Saturday time by everyone coming prepared. I expect 4 of the 7 to come ready. 2 of the remaining 3 are possibilities. The last one, the boss-- it will be a cold day in hell before I see completed homework from him. The only thing that gives me hope is that Emily is living in his upstairs bedroom right now (waiting on her new place to get painted) so maybe, just maybe she'll encourage him to get it done. But if I hear those three little words, those words that get under my skin when people use them as an excuse for something like this, something as important as our internal organization and setting goals for our company... "I was busy...," I think I'll freak. Too busy to care about the future of the company and how we can best reach our goals? Too busy to answer a couple questions about how this group can improve communication and our organizational health? Bullshit.

My mother is out there somewhere right now thinking, Language, young lady.

It's been a short week, somehow. The weekend will be even shorter.

I'm grateful to have an understanding of myself, of how I am, how I best learn, how I handle situations, so that when an unusual situation arises I can step back and analyze my reaction to it, and I have the tools to understand why I had that reaction and modify it for the future if need be. I'm grateful that I'm a thinker, that I edit my words and actions before I put them out into the world, even if it does mean a slower reaction time than sometimes I would like.

I'm also grateful for the rain today, for slowing everything down, and for my new contacts and the ability to see this screen without leaning forward and hurting my back.

Lastly, I'm grateful for being where I am and who I am right now. Despite my complaining and my second-thoughts, there's really no where else I'd rather be right now. I work with my friends, with people I can call out on their bullshit, for a company that has a real future if we can get over these speed bumps. And I live with the man of my dreams-- my best friend-- in a town I love. What else could I need?