Back In 2008...Some Were Kung Fu Fighting

 November 12th, 2008

A day that shall live in...well, not infamy, but something less severe, something fun. 

A video popped up on my social media today, a video I posted fourteen years ago. It's one of the rare times you'll see me dancing (unless you've attended one of the several community theater productions I've been in and if so, I was always a dancer in the back...). My boss at the time thought of a fun skit to do at our staff meeting. He recruited me and another co-worker to help fulfill his artistic dream.

The end result is something that still puts a smile on my face, even after all these years.

It also brings back memories. This was a tough time in my career. I had just taken a huge step and changed departments. When my job was eliminated, I was demoted as a supervisor and they placed me in another department. After about a year working there, I chose to leave and start again at the bottom...ten years with the company and I was starting over. I found myself in a small office with an incredible staff. I made many life-long friends, including my boss. He and I graduated at the same time with our masters degree. I'm still a frontline worker. He's second-in-command, my boss's boss's boss's boss. I'm happy for him--he's a natural leader.

I knew the person who filmed this (taken on a pre-smartphone phone, hence the quality of the video...) posted it to YouTube. A few years after it happened, I found it on YouTube. I tried looking for it a year or two ago and there's just no way, with the billions of videos posted since then...too many Everyone Was Kung Fu Fighting videos.

Back then, I enjoyed going into the office to work, seeing friends, working together as a team. Now, the thought of returning to work in an office is as unappealing as influenza. Oh, I'd go back if ordered, but the fun is gone. All my friends I had back then have moved on--some to the highest posts in the organization, but most quit to do other things, have families, switched jobs, left for better things.

I don't have many visual memories of my time in the Woods Cross office, but I have this video, and now, so do you. It's a fun little video to watch, but to me, it reminds me of good times...

Back when some of us were kung fu fighting.

Staff Meeting Day...

Today was our team's staff meeting at work. 

And all that that entails.

I don't know about you, but there are times when I wonder why we have so many meetings. And I'm an entry-level worker! I used to be in management--so many meetings. My boss seems to always be in a meeting. Imagine how many meetings his boss has, or his boss's boss. It's mind-boggling.

Today's meeting was slated for two hours. We went a little long this morning, but I feel it was warranted. More than half of our team has been with us less than a year. That's unusual. Most of the time, team members--or a majority of them at least--tend to stay with the same team for several years. We usually lose team members to retirement. There's been so much turnover in our team that when a co-worker and I walked into the staff room and looked around, we apologized for entering the wrong room. Turns out, we were in the right place after all.

The workers were so new, we have never before met them in person.

We chatted about policy, ways to improve, grievances...you know, your basic work stuff. We try and meet at least once a month, or have a meeting via phones. We've got workers from one end of the state to the other--another new development.

I know meetings are important, and I know, many times including while in a meeting, you wonder why we have so many. I'm sure there's been thousands of meetings with the topic being: How do we reduce the number of meetings we have?

We'll get back to you on that.

Team Staff Meeting...

At work, I am part of a team. I'm not self-employed, nor am I unemployed. My job requires the processing of information to the benefit of others. At work we each have our own assigned work, however, my employer has chosen to employ a team structure to better process the work, to get the work done quicker, and do it with fewer mistakes.

I think it's how humans are built--no man is an island (no matter what Hugh Grant's character says...). We're just designed to get more done if we work together. Families are more successful when they have and work for a common goal, marriages definitely are. Ever since I began working for my employer almost twenty years ago, I've been on one team or another.

And in an attempt to build a stronger team, we meet occasionally (unlike marriages and families that meet quite often...). Today we traveled in cars, trucks, and Priuses, and gathered at Jen Johansen Park located on Eightieth East and First North in Logan, Utah (I remember that address because we spent several minutes trying to find it...) for a team meeting and lunch.

Both were successful.

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Of course, we had the one before the other and I don't know if the team meeting would have been more successful had we the training part after lunch than before. Probably not because, even though most of us were starving as we discussed policy and procedure, trying to go through that after stuffing ourselves with salads, Dutch oven bacon and potatoes, and stacked hamburgers would have proven disastrous. We would have all most likely laid down on the grass or picnic tables and fallen asleep--the instructor included.

I am fortunate to be part of an excellent team, a team that works together to get the work done, a team dedicated to doing a great job. Having a blast at a team staff meeting where lunch is served is the dessert.