Blue Christmas

I had to back up all of my data on my MacBook Pro and reinstall my old operating system, Leopard. Why? Because I broke my own rule against installing any program that ends in .0. I fell under the spell of Snow Leopard.

The result? It refused to recognize my printer driver. The rogue driver I found would only print text and only in color. Not good for someone who relies on graphics in her job. Also, the cursor took on a life of its own, zooming randomly all over the screen. The desktop got poltergeists, which arbitrarily shrank my icons and moved them around to wherever they liked. Commands in Appleworks—a native Apple program!—did not work. Working on my laptop was like dealing with a recalcitrant teenager. Enough.

Okay. I finally found everything I needed to execute the backup (another long story). Done. Reinstall Leopard: done—wait. The "save personal settings" box was ghosted. It wouldn't let me click it. So now I'm spending hours resetting preferences and  reinstalling all of my bookmarks, which I copied and pasted one by one into a Word doc in November. (I'm learning.)

I suggest to Mac owners that you avoid the Snow until spring at least. Let them work the bugs out.

@-}—

On Sunday afternoon, when the work day was over, my colleague Alice and I were winding down and I decided to open up iTunes and play a little music.

"I have a playlist of Christmas music. Let me—OH. MY. GOSH. There are FIVE FILES* in here. WHERE ARE THE OTHER TWO THOUSAND?!"

I turned to see Alice quietly climbing under her desk.

"What are you doing?"

"I want to avoid any flying missiles," she called out from under.

After reassurances from me, she climbed back out. She has been the greatest source of laughter for me, and that is important. If you can't have fun, what's the point? She agrees.

It seems that the joy has gone out of the job for her (coordinator of church school volunteers), and she has turned in her resignation. She will finish out the year on Sunday mornings and then I will be alone in the office until we find a replacement. It is a stressful job, making sure that all volunteer posts are filled each Sunday. We need over 30 people every Sunday on hand for the children.

Alice will still be here, as the workroom assistant. She's good, she's fast, she's smart. But she's going to be sorely missed on Sunday mornings, for her laughter and wit and ability to think on her feet when something goes wrong. (And that happens on more Sunday mornings than not. Nature of the beast.)

I know she'll be happier and less stressed. But I miss her already.

@-}—

Oh yeah. The computer. I have the songs backed up too. It won't accept them from my iPod. I'm hoping I can drag them from the backup hard drive and sneak them in the back door. I will have to steel myself for the job. But the cursor works! I can print graphics! Appleworks is cooperating! My teenage computer is back to happy compliance. For now.

*The five files it saw fit to save? Three Veggietales tunes (for the children) and two sermons, one of which was arbitrarily assigned a genre: "Blues." I sent a screen shot to my pastor.

Outdoor Office

Yesterday afternoon, I took care of business on my phone. I also took this shot from my phone, between calls.

Sarasota bayfront from Island Park

Thumbs Up

I went to lunch with a bunch of colleagues at work to celebrate a birthday. Mind you, most of these colleagues are ordained pastors. Since the rest of the time they “pray for pay,” no one pounces on the chance to offer grace before the meal when we all gather. So the game is when the first food is served, fists go on the table with thumbs pointed up. The last one to notice and act has to offer the blessing. That’s right: the loser has to talk to God. Honestly, I think God gives it a thumbs up.

The Woman Who Knows Everything

No, it isn’t I. (I know! I was surprised too!)

In every organization, there is one person who is plugged into the pulse and knows who does what, what’s going on and when it’s happening, where everything is, how everything works, etc. In my personal experience, that person has always been a woman. (And, for what it's worth, it has never been me.)

Find this woman in your organization and make her your friend. She is an invaluable ally, perhaps the most important one, in helping you do your job well.

When Business is a Pleasure

Father Tony has been blogging about his experience in the working world and has offered some seriously good advice on how to move ahead.

In between my stints in the ivory towers of education and religious institution, I had a Corporate Period in which I reached my goal of corporate sales trainer. Having that managerial experience was helpful when I returned to the working world after staying home for nine years with my children.

I currently manage volunteers, which is a whole different ball of wax, let me tell you. But I have had the privilege of working for the best boss ever at my church, and I thought I’d share my thoughts on that.

There are two schools of thought on managerial style: Top/down and bottom/up. (Do not go there. This is business I’m talking about.) “Top/down” is the style you’re all used to. The boss at the top issues edicts and each layer of employees below struggles to meet the demands. It is punitive, powered by fear and can be effective for the short run. But I find it fosters distrust and stealth.

“Bottom/up” management turns the working pyramid model upside down. The owner/CEO is at the bottom point of the pyramid, doing everything in her power to support those people who report to her. She removes all obstacles that prevent them from doing the job they were hired to do. Those in turn do the same for the next organizational layer. This makes the “front line” staff the most powerful people in the organization, and they face the public or produce the product. They have been given the freedom to do what they were hired to do in the best possible manner.

Can you tell which model I prefer? I have worked in both arenas, and I can tell you hands down that the inverted pyramid model works. I used it in my brief tenure as corporate trainer. (I discovered I was pregnant two weeks after getting promoted. It was a great nine months.) In that period, turnover dropped 73% in the five stores where I trained sales staff. The one store whose training came from a manufacturer didn’t change their turnover rate (which, frankly, was unacceptably high).

When Japan surrendered in WWII, the U.S. sent W. Edwards Deming there to resurrect their broken business structure. He taught them the inverted pyramid style of management, and they took it and ran. Japan had to start from less than nothing and became an economic/industrial world power in less than forty years. This management style works. It fosters loyalty, effort, and community.

My boss at church not only used this model, he added two components that made him the best boss I’ve ever had. He communicated so well in our weekly meetings that nothing was ever a surprise (unless it came from an outside source). Our annual reviews were practically parties, because all of it was old news. We were kept apprised every week where we were and where we were going.

He was also flexible. He learned how to keep me happy. Everyone should be able to look forward to going to work as I did. I couldn’t wait to get there and do what was asked of me. What an incredible example of servant leadership he was (and is at the new church where he is now head pastor).

You can insert this model wherever you work, even where it isn’t practiced, as I did. Your department can prosper in this working model. Doing well can send you up the ladder (and down the inverted pyramid) where you can train others to do the same. It makes your workplace somewhere people want to stay and produce.