The most contagious disease on earth has nothing to do with sickness…there’s nothing worse than getting caught up in a circle of yawns. Sally from sales is the first to bust open her chops with a 2.6 second long up then out, followed by Harold from H.R. who elects to spice it up a bit with a tiny stretch. Wait! In the corner, Aaron from Accounting has pulled off a double team with Ian the Intern, instantly their arms shoot into the air, their faces take the shape of worn out pears…Holy cow we’ve got a homerun hitter on the opposite side of the room…its Debbie the door monitor who tries to hide her yawn but it ends up bursting out her nose.
What kind of message are we sending when attacked by a serious case of the middle of the day yawns? Do we let them rip or should we play lets pretend?
Office manners genius Anne Marie Sabbath sternly says, “Always bring water to a meeting. No matter how boring the guest speaker or boss becomes, it’ll keep you awake.”
A yawn is nothing more than your body searching the atmosphere for oxygen…water comes with tons of that legalized rush. Sip it, gulp it or pinch your nose to hide the flavor, if you want to wake up in lame brain meetings nab the water.
Caffeine and oversized power drinks are often used but there’s no better way to abuse that tiny self begging to be set free from the meeting. Getting juiced up sucks the liquid from your pallet forcing you to get what I call smacker talk. Every word or sound your talker makes resembles a ten thousand year old dry desert.
According to Anne Marie; attentiveness scores when your offense has elected to haul tail to places of fantasy.
So what happens when a meeting has been scheduled for weeks and the moment you arrive the room is being anchored by a completely different group? Do you pull off a Beastie Boys king sized fit in the way of fighting for your right to party?
Keep the power in your corner by electing to be the first to move to a new location. There’s no reason to waste hard to locate mid-day energy on something that can be easily solved. Don’t shove ego and attitude into the miscommunication, wait until after both meetings are completed. Carefully studying the beginning, middle and end keeps your entire team locked in a winning attitude.
What if we walk into a room and there are new people attending the business meeting? Are we busting the laws of physics by carrying our sleeping bottoms to the farthest chair and plopping down or should we play the shake and bake game—shaking hands, kissing babies and running for public office.
Inside these untrusting times in American places of business the goal is to create an opportunity to meet the already timid visitor. It’s ok to select a seat next to them with a firm plan to bust out in open conversation. It’s a little pushy and butt kissy but it pushes open a door. Good clean workday fun best fits when you don’t insist. In every meeting there’s always down time…make eye contact and smile. If you’re allowed to freshen up the drink supply, make room in your short term plan to say hello but nothing more. We don’t care about Helga and Cranky Dave in the supply closet nor do they need to be introduced to Hot Tamale Tommy whose outfit today is totally GQ.
Be savvy by not enforcing your fears onto the new person. Humans are like books…our hard covers are easily judged. No matter how bad the sewage smells, convince your mind, body and soul that every petal presented is straight from the center of a bright red rose.
This reminds me of a quote radio legend Mary London recently shared with me, “Friends are the family members we get to pick…take care of them.”
Just because Hilarious Hank from the Hillside office doesn’t tickle your funny bone, when you least expect it…he might be the only engine who takes note of your battery running dry and offers something you can relate with to get you through the day.
In Julia Cameron’s book The Artist Way at Work no matter how odd Copy Machine Maggie, Purple lips Pricilla and Percolator Paul may come across, each player presented is a valuable piece of the missing link. Taking the time to learn more about your coworkers without having a resume tossed at you like seafood in Seattle builds a relationship set on locating easy solutions rather than feeding oceans of complain, complain, complain.
For goodness sakes Ryan Seacrest and I work for the same company…the dude does every radio job and beyond. Rather than scream, “Be fair!” My goals would be to secretly conger a plan that enables the two of us to build the biggest and best super soaker to add summer play to a dog’s day of blah blah blah. Nobody makes it that far in this business without fine tuning the craft of out of the box fun. Give me thirty seconds with Seacrest and I’ll find it.
Steal my art…
arroecollins@clearchannel.com
No comments:
Post a Comment