Stop writing.... Start doing

Why just because Halloween is over do we immediately have to start looking at Christmas decorations?  Granted, I like the Christmas holiday season but it seems to start earlier and earlier each year.  Soon we might be starting to see stores decorate for Christmas in the summer or we might never see the decorations leave the store and it will just stay up year round....  I guess I'll just sit here and shake my head...

This isn't the only time that I shook my head this week...  There was one day at work that I had three people call out sick so I really had to make things work out of nothing.  Luckily we were able to survive the day but it did make me question some of the systems in place at work and I think we could be doing better in certain areas.  I haven't really had the chance to introduce the people that work in my building the things that I learned while I was at my conference and I think this upcoming week might be when I introduce some of it.  I have to have everyone come in early one day because it's the time of year for flu shots and I think I'm going to take the opportunity that day.

One of the things I noticed is we are lacking in some areas of teamwork.  When the people called out of work and I needed some people to take on additional duties, I was met with, "that's not my job."  While I understand the resistance to go above and beyond (I can't and don't expect others to give the 1000% daily that I try to hold myself to) there are times you need to at least be willing to do a little more for the sake of the team as a whole.  One of the sessions I attended at my conference was titled, "Team building on a duct tape budget" and it was literally activities to have staff participate in solely using a roll of duct tape.  I took another session on games you can play with only a tennis ball and I might bring some of those out as well.  I just know that I need to do something...

I am going to take some time for myself tomorrow; since I worked yesterday that means I have to eliminate that time from somewhere else in my schedule.  I have to go in tomorrow morning since it is a day to run billing and I'm the one in the building that knows how to take care of that.  I am planning on showing at least one other person how to run it tomorrow so I'm hoping that will help alleviate some of the things that rest on my shoulders alone.  I need to learn how to make my shoulders smaller while I'm at work...  I'm not sure how I'm going to spend the rest of my day after I go into work but I'm hoping to do some things for me.

I know that one of my frustrations comes from still not figuring out how to balance things at work and finding time to do things for me.  I have no idea how many times I've written about this balance before but I need to stop just writing about it and start doing something about it.  On a regular basis I encourage people around me to go after what they need to in order to let their own freak flags fly and when I start to wave my own, I find one reason or another to take it down, fold/ball it up and tuck it away again.  I'm ready to smack myself over this.....  I need to let me shine.  I can't do that if I keep hiding away the things that make me uniquely me.

Well my dear readers, I am going to bring this to a close for the evening.  I've given myself some things to think about for this upcoming week and (hopefully) for the weeks to come.  I hope that we all have and take those opportunities to allow our freak flags to fly!  =)