While working as a department supervisor, I had a team leader reporting to me who had a peculiar ritual: at the start of each day and again at 3:00 in the afternoon she and her team would stand up and sing together “Deep in the Heart of Texas,” complete with hand claps during the refrains. This was odd to me, for one because we were located in Michigan, and two because, well, I just didn’t get it. I thought it was annoying, disruptive, and total a waste of time. And, in the end, I actually told her she had to stop. This didn’t go over well, and I became even less popular than I already was.
Now that I’ve had many years to mature and reflect on my period of tyranny, I’ve come to see it all more clearly. What she knew that I didn’t at the time was that these breaks in the work day were critical to maintaining high morale, keeping her team energized, and building unity among everyone. And to think I destroyed all of that with one single no. :sigh:
Allison is currently living out the elaborate fantasy she described to her now-former staff and colleagues in early 2001. With a hearty dose of courage and absolutely no plan of action, she abruptly left her middle-management job to become a writer—and today she is doing just that in her role as Baudville's Senior Content Writer. She's here to tell you everything she's learned in her 20-years+ professional life, plus a lot more. She's wordy like that!
