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- What about now by Chris Daughtry
It has been raining a lot lately, very gloomy and things seem very depressing no matter where you turn. As for most businesses in our area, they’re thriving, many are focusing on cost cutting rather than revenue generating since it’s a hopeless situation to bring in more business. It’s riding out the tough times, number crunching for many that work in the Accounting department, having nightmares about cash flow. It used to be that if you rubbed shoulder with the owner, then you have a job security, but not anymore, it’s most definitely you earn your keep these days. One thing that I’ve seen and learned, you don’t take your personal problems to work, and you don’t take work home, the two just don’t mix, Max knows what I’m talking about.
It has been a while since I last posted about my garden, the Summer just flew by and now we’re heading for the Fall season. I’ve decided to plant some Fall vegetables, mainly because I want to expand my garden, and have more planting space in the Spring, but I still have a lot more work to do.
Lee is putting her little touch in “her” garden, her latest additions to the garden were the mushroom and birdbath, and her job is to make sure there’s clean water in the birdbath daily.
Have you ever been in a place or situation that it’s so tense and the air is so thick that you could cut it with a knife? I’ve been there and living it. I think many people don’t think before they speak, or maybe we just don’t see it coming, but as for me, I have to say that I am thinking more than I speak this day.
This made me think of a book that I read in December of last year, it’s called the Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni. It’s over 200 pages, and I read it in one sitting because it’s that good. The book is about a lady by the name of Kathryn Peterson who took a job as Decision Tech’s CEO, she faces the ultimate leadership crisis and has to unite a team that is in such disarray that it threatens to bring down the entire company. This book defines the dysfunctions of a team, but I think it can also be applied to any relationship, not just work related.
The first dysfunction is absence of trust. Trust is the foundation of real teamwork, and so the first dysfunction is a failure on the part of team members to understand and open up to one another, great teams do not hold back with one another, they are not afraid to air their dirty laundry, they admit their mistakes, their weaknesses, and their concerns without fear of reprisal, and the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.
The second dysfunction is fear of conflict, if we don’t trust one another then we aren’t going to engage in open, constructive, ideological conflict, and we’ll just continue to preserve a sense of artificial harmony. The conflict here is not the same as passive, sarcastic comments, and false harmony is a result of people holding back their opinions and honest concerns, and I agreed with the book that I’d trade that false kind of harmony any day for a team’s willingness to argue effectively about an issue and then walk away with no collateral damage.
Below is a picture of Ira Cline, this is his last season to greet his strawberry customers, some are his friends that come to pick his strawberries year after year.
Another sad story, when I heard that Ira Cline Farm is closing his strawberry farm, this only stresses the fact that this area is getting hit hard, plus the crop is getting taxing as well. Ira Cline is a fifth generation farmer, he was born on the Cline farm, and has been growing berries for the past 31 years. He also has blueberry, which I’ve never gone picking, it’s later in the summer, and this part of the farm will remain.
I think Americans mentality have changed, this was supposed to be a ‘you pick’ operation, but as people have more money, they don’t want to go out there to pick it themselves anymore. Ira Cline thought that people are getting lazy, I just think that it’s very inconvenient for some to go out there, and money can buy a lot of conveniences.
- Wind of Change by Scorpions
If you build it, they will come.
When Barack Obama said “…change has come to America,” he kid you not. I never thought that it’d hit me so hard, and so fast, it comes without a warning, almost like a tornado, sad to see friends, co-workers that I’ve worked with over 10 years leaving one by one. I’m still thinking that it’s a nightmare, and that I’d wake up from this, but as time passes, the reality sinks in. I dare say today that not all change is good, might be that I’ve too much put on me, must be some sort of curse, I feel like I’m drowning in my own poo, but yet I’m the lucky one. My feeling might change tomorrow, but for now, I‘m thinking about today.
Another thing that I learned just now, I was looking for an MP3 song, What About Now by Daughtry at switchpod, a site where I hosted all my MP3 songs that are posted at this blog. Instead of their normal screen, it has a Final Notice in bold print, and below read: As of Monday May 25th, 2009 the Switchpod service has gone off-line…speechless, I checked my MP3 songs, “file not found”. Great, at this moment, I’m not sure what I will do, I never did receive an email from them, what do I expect from a free on-line service.
Photo: REUTERS/Rebecca Cook
Of course, my MP3 situation is not that important comparing to everything else that is going on. For most of us, we never thought we’d live to see the day when GM file for bankruptcy, it’s unthinkable. When I read that “…A bankruptcy filing for General Motors could come in the next few days…”, I thought of all the people that work there, their families, what will they do? One of my retired co-workers that works part-time said that it was shocking, she never thought that she would live to see this day. It is sad indeed, I told her that I think Americans have changed, take her for instance, she switched from American made car to Honda, the boss also switched to Toyota, and the owner switched to BMW. As for me I’ve always driven a Toyota.
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