Good Days
Yesterday I was on a roll. Don’t believe me, then check my Facebook status.
See – it must be true 🙂
Yesterday would have been a fantastic day for me to fill out my annual (or quarterly – whatever floats your boat) employee engagement survey. Today might be a pretty good day to do it too, after all I’m still feeling the excitement from the day before.
Bad Days
But how about if we leave it to next week? Next week contains a date with destiny – I have to pull together a bunch of stuff for my accountant for our company year end. That day, though necessary, will suck. Maybe I will go for a walk on that day to lift my spirits. It might start to rain half way through the walk. I will probably spot a dead badger lying twisted by the roadside where it was flung by a high speed nocturnal vehicle. I will surely tread in poo. On my return to the office as I hop around on my poo free shoe I will fall and bang my head. In my groggy state I will then make a cup of coffee and drop the cup onto the stone floor. The culmination of all these mishaps means that day will suck. That day would be a bad day for me to fill out….you get the point.
Can’t we just accept that often, work is just that. Good days and bad days. Maybe if we spent a little more time acknowledging and celebrating the good days, and exercised a little more empathy and understanding on the bad ones, just maybe, together we might build a foundation for better work. I feel a good day/bad day survey coming on, yeah right!
Doug, you need to practice some mindfulness! http://www.getsomeheadspace.com. It’s all about seeing these exaggerations in a calm and present way. And you know how un-hessian I am. But yesterday, I had a really bad day and managed to keep a little distance through mindfulness (although the woman buying 20 scarves in Liberty did actually drive me slightly insane).
And, on a completely different note, funnily enough I thought of you yesterday as I was listening to Grayson Perry do the Reith Lecture. He has a very similar delivery style to you. Has anyone ever mentioned that before? (I really like Grayson Perry)
I agree – mindfulness as it relates to presence is very important, and whatever employee engagement is, I don’t think it sits well with that ‘in the moment’ sense. I definitely need to go and check out more about GP – I’m aware of his dress sense and not his delivery style, thanks for the pointer.
Cheers – D
PS – 20 scarves – that’s a lot!
As usual a fun post that made me smile Doug! Good idea about all those walks to clear the head – turns out you are in good company as well, check out this link: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/oct/05/daily-rituals-creative-minds-mason-currey?CMP=twt_gu
On mindfulness Julia http://humandynamics.wordpress.com/2013/10/16/waxing-lyrical/
But basically, I’m with you Doug, sometimes it is just “OK” to accept that some days are shit and others better. I’m certainly not with the ‘movement’ that seems to want to live in a bubble. After 18 years of running a business, I’ve seen plenty of these people fall by the wayside who pretend everything is fine when it’s not.
By having the odd shit day, the good ones are great !
That said, I will be developing a dog poo detector at some point in the future to get rid of this particular irritation.