Do newscasters have it correct? Is it “Swine flu or Whine flu?” Could there be two? Both create tremendous stomach problems, high levels of anxiety and completely and stressfully affect as well as infect anyone who comes near it. The only difference, Swine flu is an extremely serious life threatening disease while Whine flu plaques big and small business bosses who can’t keep employees working day after day.
Five o’clock Friday…the body required something quick to eat; a sub shop is almost healthy…until you see one employee entertaining a line of fifteen. Mike the senior in high school elected not to show. Shooting down the road as fast I could go, the Greek place is constantly brimmed with hard working players feasting on creating the perfect goal. Yes! A room full of workers, oh oh…three quarters of them are texting or talking on their cell phone.
This is far from being just a restaurant pandemic. All places of business, mall stores, hardware outlets, grocery store chains, middle of the road and high tech offices, banks, schools, gas stations and neighborhood friendliness are being run down by Whine flu. Employee’s, coworkers, family and friends who spend more time contemplating a workday escape than focusing on getting the job done…and done high quality right.
This coming from an admitted work-a-holic who finds fault in the American system of asking for only forty hours a week…anything less than sixty or eighty is laziness. There would be far less complaining on the job front if someone with enough courage stood up and said, “I need fifty five hours from you a week at normal pay.” It’s when the normal person inches ever so close to that giant four then zero that hearts begin to pound a little faster, harder then out of control…generating more stress than a belt connected to your cars engine. Yet, the belt around our waist just keeps getting bigger...we've learned to worry about that in January and May, just in time for summer loafing.
Having a job is a luxury. Can you imagine being Laura Ingles from Little House on Prairie who was expected to wake up hours before sunrise, have the chickens and cattle fed before six, raking as well as weeding the dry fields completed by eleven so lunch can be prepared by noon so that could return irrigating the larger than life garden, stacking hay, shucking corn for animal feed, watering the horses and or sheep six miles away.
Even that doesn’t come close to the picture my mother constantly paints of our nation during the chapters written in the days after the Great Depression. War Time America put single ladies in bullet building job positions miles from family. Mom speaks of having to do a full day of what she called mans work. Wining about family issues, bank account problems, running off to the dentist in the middle of the afternoon or taking a three hour lunch in the middle of an expected eight hour day wasn’t part of their struggling economy.
As much as I want to blame mom for my passion at the workplace…she only gets credit for displaying a strong backbone during moments of crisis. No moping, no flopping down on the sofa to catch Oprah or Ellen…if one job position wasn’t enough, she moved ahead to land three sometimes four different jobs with not one single complaint of having too much expectation from out of control bosses.
Anyone can feed a tale of having incredible work ethics…talk is cheap. Executing top of the line performances everyday and not when you’re in the mood isn’t something that’s given to you at birth, leaders aren’t born…they are made…you must be taught exceptional ways to execute endeavors on time, every time…or assume the shape of a giant lion whose wild hair gently blows in the wind, not a care in the world because the King of Beasts has employees to do the deed.
All mammals find great energy in taking it one or far less step at a time…
Nobody really knows where human addiction to entertainment began, the Pictorial Caves outside Billings, Montana showcase ancient sketches on the walls of sandstone of a time in history when taking life easy wasn’t the fun part about living…it was bringing to life a landscape of plans that enabled the entire body to be fed. The idea of sacrificing what affects those who make up your circle was once looked upon as being a state of weakness and if that occurred you were forced to leave, to survive on your own and in the days before Laura Ingles, the likelihood of that was maybe six weeks to a year.
Once bitten by Whine flu, grasping the heart strings of department heads who vow to understand and have guaranteed they won’t act like the corporate leaders from the 1980’s and 90’s best known for micro-managing…we’ve lived too hard to seek control of your life and style, so lets reinvent the workplace like Microsoft and relax on the ideals that once held performance together and give trust to short term individuality.
Let reality be reality…Scotty Pippin of the infamous Chicago Bulls was paid to give Michael Jordon the ball. Dennis Rodman was there to pick up, grab, rip from another player any and every rebound possible and to do nothing more than send that ball back to Michael Jordon. You don’t need an entire bench of wanna-be players to win a game, they bottom lined it like a true business seeking success.
Michael Jordon’s personal claim to fame isn’t the number of perfect shots he made. It’s far from being the huge collection of rings embracing a national championship. The single greatest thing Michael Jordon holds…he got to be with his father for thirty nine years. His father was the spirit keeper and guide to a work ethic that lead a team, not an individual to unheard of success. Steph Curry from the Davidson Wildcats was the nation’s top shooter in college basketball, now headed to the NBA. Look who’s been there to showcase spectacular loyalty, dedication, determination and a willingness to never stop learning…his mother and father. I asked Harlem Globe Trotter Buckets Blake about Steph Curry, he said, “The man loves to share the ball…”
Whine flu doesn’t exist inside a champions chapters.
My coach was Fred Story. Because of his constant desire to bring listeners to radio commercials rather than push them away…his art of showmanship landed in my hands and to this day, every break on the air, every commercial written and played out still holds his signature of style.
Teach yourself to steal a champions art…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
No comments:
Post a Comment