Mission 6 - Mother Henn - 12/29/10 1 pm

Fun... laughter... not the usual words that come up when talking about work. UNTIL NOW! Viewed the video and gosh, they have fun! They're all so hip, and happening, and happy - do you think drugs are involved? - JOKING! Okay, Mother Henn, just answer the questions. I love how they goof around, the chair spinning thing looked fun, that would be a good contest. It seems they're just themselves - the woman medidating in the luggage compartment - just being herself. How can we do that at CTL? We've started already with the blog and challenges. In the Hartford region we've gotten together three times this year - we've never done that before. What fun! We went to dinner in Hartford this summer, met at corporate for a meeting, and then we gathered for the Christmas party - all great times full of laughs. That needs to continue. Another idea is to put a comedy corner on the blog, allowing employees to post jokes, anecdotes, stories. Dear Cyndy is doing a marvelous job in this area - Cyndy, you crack me up and I thank you for that. I think employees need permission to have fun at work and PERKS has certainly opened that door for us. It is sometimes difficult in our line of work to be 'happy' - our office is full of people who are unemployed, broke, homeless, hungry. It almost seems heartless to be overly jovial or giggly when there are customers who are truly facing some horrific things and who are quite frankly depressed, and rightfully so. Selling shoes isn't quite as serious as changing families, so I do wonder how much we can emulate Tony and still maintain our respect for our customers and their challenges. Just wondering.... there must be a balance between bringing fun to your job and respecting the precarious situations of our customers.