Play to Your Strengths (There's Nothing Wrong with You)

There's time before work for an Auntie-Vi style chit-chat this morning... We always talked about the weather.
Auntie Vi, I miss you!
How's the weather in heaven?
I picture it as a perfect Green Bay Packers football game day.
It's so weird here, the day before Thanksgiving--it's 28ºF this morning, due to warm up 21 degrees to 49º.
Then back into the 30s for the next ten days.

I heard from my cousin Donna again recently--a card in the mail.
She's the only one from that family to stay in touch with me, and I'm the only one she's in touch with too. Family connections were often riven with discord, so no surprise, but I am a little sad about it. But only sad IN THEORY--the idea of seeing my actual cousins doesn't appeal. They're almost entirely 'Trump in Jesusland' people.
Funny because our grandparents were immigrants, but I get it:
We got ours, now we're not sharing.

Auntie Vi would want to hear about yesterday's work lunch, too.
It all came together perfectly, and everyone seemed to like making their own sandwiches.
Funny little detail--I'd hesitated but decided to buy a jar of sliced dill pickles for sandwiches. I don't put them on my sandwiches--I prefer banana peppers––but I thought of all the offerings in the Subway cold tray, and pickles are one. Sure enough, half the jar got eaten.
Gotta cater to all tastes, not just mine.

I'm pleased, too, that I thought to put the ham on a separate tray from the sliced turkey and cheese. J. is Muslim and won't touch pork. Funny, because I know he'll drink a beer, but whatever. I don't care--it's an easy fix--I just had to THINK of it.
I told him, "This ham and this turkey have never met--they don't even know each other's name!"
And he laughed.

Play to Your Strengths

I guess that's a strength of mine--to see what people like, even if it's not important to me, and to (try to) engineer for that.

Vi would love that I've started to read Help! I Work with People: Getting Good at Influence, Leadership, and People Skills  (Chad Veach, Bethany House, 2020). She liked upbeat stuff, and this is that.
Veach's premise is that in life, you'll likely find yourself in some sort of leadership position eventually, even if without a formal designation. And you might not be great at it, but you can LEARN to do it better by harnessing and supporting your strengths.
I'm sometimes finding myself in that position, Leader by Default, simply by being older in age, and also being one of the longest lasting crew at work.

BUT, I'm not comfortable with leadership, have always avoided stepping up to it--especially avoiding coordinating other people or asking for help. I try to do whatever by myself.

This lunch was a wee, tiny bit different for me:
Big Boss & Manageress had offered help, and I told them what was needed. Then, Manageress was sick, so I recruited someone else for her task--to decorate the break room. Her replacement wasn't stellar at that, but it was better than nothing,
and the feeling of willing cooperation was nice.
I thought, I COULD GET BETTER AT THIS.

I'm not very far in the book, but the first section is about getting to know yourself, as a leader--and his main advice is to strengthen your strengths, and to work around/farm out your weaknesses.
For instance, discover the kind of communication you're best at, and engineer that. If you hate answering the phone, you could spend energy getting better at it, and that might be good;
but it might be easier to ask someone else to do it, or to request instead that people text or email you.

I've found this to be true--starting with the key:
Be honest with yourself. Kinda gotta get outside yourself a bit to do that--lots of paths to that: I've found that learning to recognize cognitive biases (list here)--our brains' 'blind spots'--was super, super helpful.

I'm always using Ass't Man as a counter example, but he's such a good one--he always blamed other people instead of being honest about himself and saying "I'm afraid of this"; "I'm inexperienced"; or, simply, "I don't like this part."

Know your whole self; support your strengths; don't get caught endlessly analyzing "what's wrong with me?".

Nothing's wrong with you!
Limitations aren't "wrong"--there's stuff you aren't designed for, and will never be good at or enjoy (but might have to do anyway--there's a skill to that too);
and there's a whole lot of skills that you simply haven't learned or practiced (enough) yet, but will get better at, if you want to try.

(Of course, there may be so much 'never-learned' stuff, you are buried in it--like Willy who was drowning in alcohol. But I bet he wasn't born like that...
After he was fired for sexual harassment, I learned he was a Vietnam vet, on top of everything else. That sadly wouldn't have changed how I viewed him, because he'd become a hazard to others, but it did make me see again (again) that factors outside our control can really get on top of you.)

This is pretty one-oh-one stuff, I guess, but I'm finding it a helpful boost--and it's good to circle back and review because it takes a long time to DO it well.

At work, the thing is, often there is no one else to step up, so if I don't do something, it doesn't get done.
Frustrations aside, I'm mostly okay with that situation because, due to the lack of management, I get to choose what I step up to.
I would love GOOD management, would I ever! But since most management I've ever experienced hasn't been good, I kinda prefer this non-management.
Our Non-Management is sometimes so very NOT good, it tips into Bad; but mostly in this workplace it simply doesn't stand in my way. I have room to experiment and learn.
And doing that is up to me--and while I'd love some support, I like the freedom.

Okay--off to work! Have a good day!