Happy Father’s Day! Last year, I shared a story about the lessons my dad taught us through home remodeling and vacation planning (you can find that post here). This year, I wanted to share two very important things he learned during a significant portion of his life (long before I was born), that he has …
Three weeks ago, I wrote this post about the importance of seeking out and considering multiple perspectives. At the time, I was thinking about the pandemic, the reopening debate, the culture wars surrounding masks and social distancing, and dissension about economic policies and social inequalities. After writing the post, I remarked to a friend that …
So last night I read that one in four Americans are currently under a “shelter in place” advisory or mandate. Across the world, schools are closing or doing virtual instruction. Many businesses are closed, running with limited staff, or having their employees work from home. Add store and restaurant closures, restrictions on public gatherings, and …
At work there is a specific set of data that my team must collect and organize every month. Over the course of many years, there have been changes in collection methods, spreadsheet organization, analysis, and who receives the final product. Due to some changes in organizational structure, for several months now we’ve had no idea …
I’m a big fan of TED talks, and there’s always something new and interesting on my activity feed. I also frequently turn to the TED site for talks to integrate into trainings and presentations, so I get to watch them at work, too. Early this week, I came across this talk, where Matt Cutts spends …
I always keep a collection of small gifts on hand, in case I have an impulse to give someone a pick me up or a thank you, or if I need a last minute present for a forgotten event. Once December rolls around, I stock up even more, making sure that I’m well supplied both …
I started my blog just over a year ago (and I still can’t believe it’s been a year already), so shortly after I got going I started seeing lots of Blogmas posts. The challenge, I soon learned, was to post every day from December 1 to December 25. I knew there was no way I …
As I mentioned last week, things at work have gone sideways and the pressure is on. After our first week of extra long days, multiple meetings, and minimal argument, I’m happy to report that my “crisis team” is making progress and on track to meet a critical deadline in mid December. It’s going to take …
So some things blew up at work this week, and as a result there are several people, myself included, who are going to be doing a whole lot of extra work in a very short time period. This is not a case of me stepping up to fix someone else’s mistake (as I cautioned against …
I believe that it’s very important to be generous, helpful, and available. I spend a lot of my time trying to make other people’s lives easier. It makes me happy to do that. However, there are limits. That’s been a tough lesson to learn because setting those boundaries has meant dealing with a lot of …
Amanda Cade 