Holiday – Page 2 – mardihumphreys.com

Passed Examples

The Sunday after Labor Day is Grandparents Day in America. This resonates with me because as I was growing up all of my grandparents worked. From birth to age thirteen, I had four grandparents. One set of maternal and one set of fraternal. The two sets were very different from one another.

Stoic vs. Emotional
Never went to church vs. Went to church every time the doors were open
Mail carrier and former U.S. Army Air Corp captain married to a children’s librarian turned bank employee vs. Factory worker and former marine married to a waitress turned factory worker
One set paid for my freshman year of college vs. One set invited me to do my laundry at their house every week
Lawrence Welk vs. Hee-Haw

Grandparents have seen more of society’s evolution, experienced more heartache, strived more to make ends meet, and learned more lessons on setting priorities. Here are things I learned about work from my grandparents.

Sometimes Your Job is Just a Job

When I was a child, my maternal grandfather worked at a car manufacturing plant. He did not talk a lot about his job. He did not love his job. He did not expect it to be his calling. He worked so his family had food, clothing, shelter, and fun. He found his greatest fulfillment in God. His love of the Bible, his church, and its people was his calling. It is where he invested his T.E.A.M. From him I learned that work can simply be a means to an end.

People Come First

When I was a child, my maternal grandmother was employed at the same car manufacturing plant as my maternal grandfather. My fraternal grandmother worked at a bank. On occasion, both babysat me when my school was on a break and my parents were at work. I remember watching television at my maternal grandparents’ house while my grandmother cooked and did laundry because for her a day off from the factory meant a day working at home. I also remember going to the local bank with my fraternal grandmother with a tote bag full of snacks, books, and seek-and-find word puzzles to keep me busy in the break room while she did her job. (This was waaaaaay before Bring Your Child to Work Day.) Both women found ways to help my parents watch over me. From them I learned helping people takes priority over work.

The Correct Way to Cut a Pie

When I was a child, my fraternal grandfather was a mail carrier. Before I was born, he was a POW during WWII for 11 months. During that time, food was scarce for him. When my parents and I spent Thanksgivings with my fraternal grandparents, my grandmother always made two pumpkin pies for the five of us. My grandfather got one all to himself. After dinner, he settled in front of the television with his pie to watch football and say, “There’s only one way to cut a pie. In half. One for the first half and one for the second half.” From him I learned to reward myself for putting in the work.

What did you learn about work from your grandparents? Please share in the comments.

Setting the Standards

If your husband is also a father, do you get him a gift for Father’s Day? Why do we lump husband and father together? The roles are very different. Here’s what I’m thinking.

Criteria for Husbands

Be a friend – Your wife should be the first person who hears your breaking news, whether good or bad. You are the person your wife should be able to trust the most, so keep her secrets. Everyone has faults, and your wife is probably painfully aware of hers, so resist pointing them out.

No wife jokes – Like these. I propose the traditional marriage vows be amended to say, “to love, cherish, and respect until parted by death.”

Ride or die – You and your wife are a team. Your first loyalty is to her for better for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, yada, yada, yada.

Responsible – Do what you say you’re going to do. If you tell her you’re going to mow the lawn today, do it. If you change your mind, tell her.

Unselfish – Put your wife’s needs ahead of your own. Has she worked overtime this week? Then suggest she stay home from your company softball game tonight.

Affection – This isn’t necessarily public displays of physical affection or mushy social media posts. It can be as simple as letting her know you’re paying attention. For example, my husband doesn’t usually tell me when he’s read something I wrote. After I published this he bought me a coffee mug. I thanked him and mentioned that it matched the article’s specifications. In his best Han Solo imitation, he said, “I know.” I not only love the mug, (and him!) but I also love knowing that he read something I wrote.

Communication – Disagreements are a given, but fights don’t have to be. It helps to remember that it is the two of you against the challenge not the two of you against each other. Even when the challenge is your wife, speaking the truth in love will resolve an issue faster.

BTW, You should expect these same considerations from your wife.

Criteria for Fathers

Physical security – You contribute to the provision of food, clothing, and shelter.

Emotional safety – You enforce the rules. When you show your children where their boundaries are, it instills confidence in them. Kids want to make dad proud and now they know how.

Relationship role model – If you are loving and kind, then your children will seek those qualities in the people they choose to allow into their lives. Their behavior in their relationships will also be loving and kind because they saw their father model it.

Unconditional love – Consistently reassuring your children that you will love them no matter what gives your kids peace of mind.

Proactive parenting – You are raising your children to be adults capable of functioning without you. You plan your time with them to achieve that goal.

Present and involved – You set aside time (and your phone, and your laptop, etc.) to focus on your children and what they are interested in and/or struggling with.

Respects the mother – Whether you live with your children and their mother or not, you present a united front with her. You keep your disagreements between the two of you and resolve them in private.

Do you agree with these theories? What did I get wrong or forget to mention? Please share in the comments.

Don’t Press Your Luck

St. Patrick’s Day is this week and while you’re deciding whether or not you have a green shirt appropriate for work, thieves are working to steal the pot of gold you plan to get back from the federal government. It’s time to file your taxes and scammers are looking for ways to get their hands on your refund. Some of the most common scams involve stealing your identity. Here are three you should be aware of.

Tax Refund Fraud

You submit your tax return online. You receive a notification that your taxes have already been filed and the refund paid. A scammer has filed a tax return pretending to be you and stolen your refund. That isn’t the only thing they’ve stolen. They have to have your Personally Identifiable Information (PII) to file a tax return; specifically, your name, Social Security number and birthdate. This means they’ve stolen you identity too. To prevent this, keep your PII both secret and secured. It’s also a wise choice to file your taxes as soon as you receive all the necessary documents, like W-2s, 1099s, etc. Here is a checklist.

IRS Imposter

You receive a call from someone who presents themselves as an official. They say you owe unpaid taxes. You want to both act with integrity and stay out of trouble, so you’re inclined to answer their invasive questions about your PII. Right now you may be thinking, “This is old news. Fraudsters have been doing this for years.” And you’d be right. But if you see the words Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on your caller ID, it makes the scam seem legitimate, doesn’t it? Scammers get more sophisticated every year and experienced ones use spoofing to disguise themselves. To prevent this, remember that the IRS does not contact you through a phone call, text, email, or social media. If they want to get ahold of you they will snail mail you a letter. If you want to double check after receiving a communication other than a letter, call them at (800) 829-1040 and tell them what happened.

Stolen Unemployment Benefits

You lost your job thanks to COVID-19 and received unemployment benefits from your state in 2021. That money is taxable by the federal government. You received an IRS Form 1099-G. Box 1 on this form lists an amount of money you did not receive, or the amount listed is more than you received, or you did not apply for unemployment benefits from the state that sent you the form. A criminal has stolen your identity and used it to file for unemployment benefits. To prevent this, if you receive a text message or email from someone claiming to be from a state workforce agency and it contains a link to a website, do not click on the link. The message is from a scammer who is trying to trick you into going to their fake website. They want you to think that you’re applying for unemployment benefits on this site, but what you’re really doing is giving them the PII they need to steal your identity. If you receive a text or email like that, report it here.

Here is a longer list of current tax scams the IRS is keeping an eye on. What do you do to protect yourself from tax fraud? Please share in the comments.

Habilitation vs Rehabilitation

I intended to resume lifting you up this week with warm, fuzzy, holiday-ish articles, but I tripped over reality.

It started with a ride along. I accompanied an officer of the Dayton Police Department’s 3rd District West Patrol Operations on part of his tour of duty. You can do it too, if you want. Here’s how. Yes, I saw some citizens exhibiting some questionable behavior. But more significantly, I saw police officers acting as peace officers. For example, we responded to a call about a young man with special needs refusing to enter the house of his foster mom. I watched two grown men ooh and aah over this youngster’s prowess with a remote control car in her driveway. Then they asked him what toys he’d like to show us in the house. The woman said she told the young man that the Dayton Police were good, helpful people and these officers proved her right. Recent events have spotlighted the need for improvement in the Dayton Police Department. Please know these two officers (and other good and helpful men and women like them) are on the force.

The next day I had the privilege of being immersed in the Montgomery County, Ohio justice system as part of the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce’s Leadership Dayton program. Our host warned us that we would end the day with more questions than answers. He was right. Here are three of my take aways.

Do we expect too much from our justice system?

In 2021, the state of Ohio has 50,338 people in its prisons. Do they all deserve to be there? Judges are the ones who decide. There are judges in Montgomery County who routinely see under-resourced defendants with high odds of recidivism. These judges intentionally give those defendants dignity and respect in their courtrooms in an effort to keep them out of jail cells. They use their experience, discretion, and time to filter defendants who are willing to work for a second chance through diversion programs like those offered by the Montgomery County Office of Reentry. They strive to be right on crime, not tough on crime.

Is there an alternative to incarceration?

What if everyone had a second chance and someone to believe in them? Graduates of Montgomery County’s Reentry Career Alliance Academy (RCAA) have a less than five percent recidivism rate post-program. In practical terms, it costs $30,558 a year to incarcerate someone in the state of Ohio. What if that citizen were making that much money and paying taxes on it instead?

Do you need workforce?

Have you (or will you) consider hiring a Returning Citizen? Graduates of the RCAA program work in restaurants, churches, and non-profits, and many other industries. Can you give a Restored Citizen the hope of a second chance at being a functioning and productive member of society? Hey, look at that. Hope. Isn’t that what the holidays are about? It seems this is a holiday-ish post after all.

What do you think of Restored Citizens in the workforce? Please share in the comments.

Distracted December

The only thing I love more than making to-do lists is crossing items off them. But I feel something inside tugging on me to stop and pay attention to the holidays before they all pass by. If you feel the same, then here are some suggestions for reconciling work productivity and holiday celebrations.

Plan

What are the top three things you absolutely need to accomplish by January 1, 2022? Schedule them on your calendar and block that time. When you’re doing one of these tasks, concentrate on it until either it’s done, or you’ve gotten as far as you can in one sitting. Do not allow interruptions and distractions. Do not check your mobile or multi-task. Multi-tasking is like treading water. You work hard but don’t get very far. In this plan remember to schedule time for:

Checking with the people from whom you need information. Ask them when they are taking time off. This will prevent you from either interrupting their holidays or putting important projects on hold
Margin. If you think a task will take thirty minutes, schedule at least forty-five to complete it. If you’re done in forty minutes, take two of them and stare off into the distance to give your eyes a break before tackling the next project
Yourself. It’s the secret sauce of productivity. Even if it’s to spend the day in your PJs sipping coffee and reading a novel, take time to rest, recharge, and reboot
Buying gifts
Celebrating. Ask your co-workers what holidays they’re observing and invite them to share their traditions at the all-team party. BTW, leave your phone in another room so you aren’t tempted to check it
Attending a holiday networking event. The holiday season is a good opportunity to both make new acquaintances and deepen relationships with business associates you recently met
Adjusting the plan. In mid-December look at the bottom of your priority list and see what you can put off until after January 1st

Break

Take care of yourself. Get up from your desk and stretch after an hour’s work. Drink a glass of water instead of a caffeinated drink. Get enough sleep. Reward yourself with a break to do whatever you want to for fifteen minutes (power nap, check Facebook, watch a cute cat video) after finishing a task.

Analyze

At the beginning of January, analyze your data. Answering these questions will help you improve the end of 2022:

Did you accomplish everything you wanted to? If not, what stopped you?
What did you do well?
What could you improve?
What do you wish you’d done differently? How will you make that adjustment next time?

You’re juggling parties, shopping, traveling, children’s events, etc., and you’d rather be watching Elf than working on the end-of-the-year report. Set your boundaries, communicate them, and enforce them. The earlier in the process you do this, the more understanding your team and manager will be.

Do you have a plan for finishing 2021 strong? Please share in the comments.

It Can Be Tricky

Photo by Rasa Kasparaviciene from Pexels

The approaching holiday has you all up in your thankful feels, but you’re worried about inadvertently offending instead of appreciating. When it comes to acknowledging your managers, remote teammates, clients, coworkers, volunteers, board members, mentors (Wow. You have a ginormous sphere of influence.), if you express your gratitude sincerely, specifically, and sensitively, then it has the best chance of being received well. Here are some examples of what not to do followed by a better way.

Sincere

DON’T: You stop at your teammate’s cubicle and see they are out to lunch. You leave a blank envelope containing a five-dollar gift card to their favorite local coffeehouse on their desk, then you go out to lunch. Your teammate returns and finds the random gift. Instead of feeling appreciated, they are creeped out.

DO: Wait for an opportunity to see them in person so you can look them in the eye and tell them why you’re giving them this gift. How did their recent action positively affect you? Simply saying, “I appreciate you having my back in the report-out meeting last month. Please have a cup of coffee on me at your convenience.” Will not only prevent them from being creeped out, it should also ensure their future support.

Specific

DON’T: You just gave your direct report a glowing performance review. At the end of the meeting, you say, “Great job last year. Keep it up. Have a good rest of your day,” then leave the video conference.

DO: You have to go through the standard on-a-scale-of-one-to-five form for HR, but if you want to retain this employee, you also need to draw a little deeper from the appreciation well. There are probably several instances when they made your life easier last year. Choose one and expound on it. For example, “Thank you for putting the Powerpoint presentation together last July for the contract renewal meeting. It took a lot of time to shepherd all the departments involved, fact check the slides, and incorporate everyone’s notes. Would you please write a report with your suggestions on how we can improve that process?” Not only does that express your gratitude for their mad follow-up skills, it also validates their work, lets them know they have a future with the organization, and encourages them to take on more responsibility.

Sensitive

DON’T: Once a year you give an award to the individual contributor that received the most positive feedback for customer service. This year’s recipient is known throughout the organization as an extreme introvert. You present the award to them in front of the whole company and their plus ones at the annual holiday lunch. Instead of feeling honored, they are embarrassed.

DO: Is it necessary to announce the award winner at the holiday lunch? If so, don’t force the extreme introvert to walk up in from of everyone to accept it. An award of appreciation should be thoughtful, creative, and personal. An announcement in the company newsletter and a handwritten note thanking them for the good care they took of your customers last year is more appropriate for an extreme introvert.

Thirty percent of employees quit their jobs due to lack of appreciation. Maybe your New Year’s resolution could be finding one thing to sincerely appreciate about one person every day. A daily gratitude habit can be contagious. You could revolutionize your workplace.

How often do you intentionally thank those around you? Please share in the comments.

No Labor Today

Our wedding anniversary typically falls around Labor Day. My husband and I usually schedule time off work around the holiday weekend to celebrate by traveling a bit. This year marks our 30th wedding anniversary, so we decided to do something special. We visited Grand Teton National Park. We not only needed a grand gesture to celebrate our milestone, but also to get as far away from our day-to-day as possible. Pre-COVID-19, I wrote about how it benefits your job when you take a break from it. Mid-COVID-19, a break feels mandatory. With the blurred boundaries between work, home, school, etc., how can you process what you just lived through (and continue to live through) and use those learnings to iterate the next version of your life post-COVID-19? You don’t have to go all the way to Wyoming, but you should unplug, reset, and filter.

Unplug

We chose to get away to a place with little to no cell service, mostly because I can’t be trusted to enforce my OOO boundary. But maybe your children are in the throes of the beginning of both the school year and their fall extracurriculars so you need to stick close to home. Get creative about taking time to recharge. For example, take half-days off for a week. While the rest of your household is doing their things, turn off your phone, laptop, Xbox, etc., and change your scenery. If your job is sedentary, go to a Metropark and bike, walk, or kayak. If your job is physical, go to the library and read, journal, or listen to music. Whichever you choose, commit to only answering your mobile if there is a life (not work) emergency.

Reset

Get out of your comfort zone. Choose one activity you’ve never done before and do it every day for the week. If you work by yourself, follow CDC guidelines and do a project with others. If you work with others, find a solitary pursuit. You could:

Volunteer at your local food bank, church, or YWCA
Study coding with Python
Learn to cook your favorite restaurant meal with YouTube videos
Listen to different music (e.g., rap if you’re a country fan)
Read a different genre (e.g., non-fiction if you normally read sci-fi)

By the end of the week, you’ll know whether or not your choice is an activity you enjoy. If it helps you reset your mindset, then make time in your schedule to keep doing it.

Filter

At the end of each day, journal about your new activity. You could write, doodle, voice memo, whatever is your choice for making notes. Think about:

What did you see, hear, touch, taste, and/or smell?
How did it make you feel?
What did you learn?
What does it make you want to change?
What does it make you want to keep doing?
How will you use these new insights to influence your work?
Are there priorities you have to reset? People to whom you have to communicate boundaries? Comfort zones you have to get out of?

Prioritizing your physical, mental, and emotional health gives you the energy you need to bring your best effort to work, life, and people in your circle of influence.

What are you going to do to recharge? Please share in the comments.

Travel Team

It’s vacation season and if you have a spouse, you want to travel together. But there are things you want to do that they don’t, such as spend five hours at one art museum, spend three hours at a coffee shop, or spend an hour reading a book at a botanical garden. Luckily, you have friends who think these pastimes sound heavenly. In addition to traveling with your partner, take a trip with a friend. These adventures are ripe with lessons you can take back to work.

Getting to Know You

Constant togetherness reveals hidden talents as well as idiosyncrasies. For example, you discover that your friend has an uncanny ability to quickly spot your Uber while they notice that you can easily navigate large airports. On the other hand, maybe you are irritated by your friend’s obsession with the weather forecast and they are annoyed by your insistence to walk everywhere. We learn to be more considerate of each other because our time together is finite. The same is true at work. Projects have lifecycles. Acknowledge an interpersonal conflict when it starts. Be quick to define both your and your teammate’s boundary. Additionally, recognize that taking the time to unravel and resolve miscommunication is time well spent.

Plan B (or C or…)

When traveling, sometimes Plan A won’t work. Issues like flight delays, a car rental company losing your reservation, and a broken air conditioner in your hotel room provide multiple opportunities to not only find out how good a business is at customer service, but also work with your friend to figure out how to overcome the obstacle. Which one of you will: Take the lead in patiently communicating the unacceptable situation to customer service? Motivate the other to remain calm? Influence the service you receive by confirming that everyone is working toward the same goal? After recovering from the setback, you can take the lessons you learned (e.g., active listening, empathizing, aligning expectations) back to work and apply them to your team’s next project. When unpredictable obstacles occur, you can confidently take the lead to solve them because you’ve experienced the emotional intelligence required to get through a frustrating process.

Teamwork

The first time you travel with a friend to a destination that’s new to both of you, logic dictates that you set the parameters of the trip and start negotiating. Who is booking the transportation? Who is booking the hotel? Who is booking reservations at the restaurants, museums, sites, etc. that you want to visit? You divide up the task list according to talent. They are good at determining how much time you need between connecting flights. You can detect if a hotel is as good as its marketing says it is. You must trust each other to complete these tasks. During the trip, you both are gracious when unforeseen challenges happen. You patiently support one another when mistakes in judgement cause setbacks. You encourage each other to stretch outside of your comfort zones. You remain flexible so both of you can reach the individual objectives you have for the getaway. See what I did there? These activities are examples of collaborative teamwork. The same skills and mindset you use traveling with your friend apply to the project you’re tackling with your coworkers.

Do you plan to travel with friends this summer? Where are you going? Please share in the comments.

Reservation Highly Recommended

Dad and Me Father’s Day 2021 Photo by MSH

During one of my networking groups last week, we discussed what we learned from the men in our lives in honor of Father’s Day. My dad unintentionally taught me the power of follow-up. In a conversation he habitually listens more than he talks, asks engaging questions, and, even if it’s weeks later, texts or calls for an update. You’d assume the follow-up would be the most powerful part of the process, but no. It’s the listening. If you’re just listening to reply, you’ll jump into the conversation at your first opportunity. But if you restrain yourself and listen to understand, (e.g., repeat what the speaker said back to them, ask investigative questions) you build trust. Acting with restraint is useful in many work situations.

Social Intelligence

Robert Greene advises “Never outshine the master.” You may be smarter than your manager when it comes to the assigned task, but if you push back too hard, you reveal that you lack social intelligence. For example, once upon a time I was in a brainstorming meeting with a group of five people: an executive, his assistant, and two of my teammates. The exec kept falling down rabbit holes and I kept pulling us back with the same phrase, “So, the goal is zero waste…” The third time I said it, the exec seemed embarrassed. By the fifth time I said it, both the exec and his assistant were annoyed and my teammates were uncomfortable. In demonstrating I knew what the goal was, I exposed that his ideas would not achieve it. Remember the cliche, don’t bite the hand that feeds you? When applied to work, don’t break the finger of the hand that signs your paycheck.

Emotional Intelligence

Let’s say our team missed a deadline because you spent more time on social media than working on our project. If I pointed this out, how would you react? Would you get defensive and lash out? Or would you take a few deep breaths and ask for a safe place outside your workspace to store your phone while you’re working on our project? The latter choice shows restraint. Reacting out of ego won’t serve you in the long run. Humility is strength, not weakness. You fell into temptation. Get up, make the necessary adjustment, and keep going.

Business Intelligence

Creative freedom is an oxymoron. Freedom leaves choices wide open. You’re more creative when given parameters like a direction, deadline, or dilemma to solve. In other words, a restraint. For example, I’m constantly looking for ways to promote brand awareness that won’t break my budget. The views on the company’s social media pages go way up when I post photos or videos of our dog. Thus, “Tails From the Home Office,” a photo/video series starring my adorable-but-less-than-helpful “assistant” was born. Restraint is also crucial when searching for B2B clients. No one wants to miss a lead, but lack of focus denies you a priority. BTW, Priority implies one. If you have multiple priorities, then you don’t have any. Define yours and filter decisions through it. If your sweet spot is fast-growing manufacturers with 50 or fewer employees, build relationships with them. Don’t let FOMO cause you to miss those you serve best.

How has showing restraint helped you get ahead at work? Please share in the comments.

Nest Eggs

When her grandchildren were little, my mother-in-law hosted annual Easter egg hunts. She loved hiding candy-filled eggs in her yard for them to find. There was one egg bigger than all the others that she filled with cash instead of candy. She called it the money egg. Every child wanted to find it, break it open, wave the cash around, and speculate on how they would spend it. If they’d saved the money in those eggs instead, how much would they have now? You can help your children, grandchildren, godchildren, nieces, nephews, or any youngsters you love, begin good money saving habits this Easter.

Littles

In addition to candy, put a wallet in their Easter basket. A child as young as kindergarten can be taught it’s a safe place to keep the contents of their money egg. This gift implies valuables (money, gift cards, library card, driver’s license, etc.) should be kept organized, somewhere they can find it, and safe. A wallet is something they can keep in their room and periodically check to see how full it is. When a significant amount is accumulated, it’s time to open a bank account.
We’re still in our bubbles for a little while, so, if you’re buying for children who are at least five years old, how about a new board game? Monopoly has several junior versions that help teach concepts like buying, selling, and paying rent. The dollar designations are smaller than the adult game and the properties you can buy (e.g., an arcade) are more age appropriate.
You can use Easter baskets for some not so obvious financial lessons like delayed gratification. For example, if your little ones want to eat their Easter candy before breakfast, offer them a choice. They can either have one little solid chocolate egg before breakfast or half of the big bunny after breakfast. In other words, would they rather have a little now or wait for a bigger reward? When they are older and want to spend their work bonus on the latest iPhone now instead of putting it in their 401(k), this lesson should come in handy.

Bigs

If you’re giving an Easter present to a juvenile with a job, whether formal (e.g. bagger at a grocery) or informal (e.g., mowing lawns), how about opening a Roth IRA for them? There are several companies that don’t charge for opening an account. Which is not the same as no minimum investment, btw, so read brokerages’ terms and conditions before choosing one. If the child is a minor, the account will have to have an adult custodian. If that won’t be you, check with the receiver’s parent first. This gift plants a few seeds for learning about investing. As they get older and the money grows, they can evaluate available saving options for a long-term goal. It also accustoms them to habits like contributing to their future employers’ 401(k) plans. The earnings from a Roth IRA can be used to pay for higher education (at an eligible institution) without penalty for early withdrawal. Every little bit a young person is willing to save now will pay off big time when they graduate high school.

While these probably won’t replace chocolate bunnies, Reese’s eggs, or jelly beans, finding some money-wise goodies in their Easter baskets communicates that you care about their happiness beyond today.

Were money eggs included in Easter egg hunts when you were little? Did you save or spend them? Please share your story in the comments.