One to grow on

Sometimes you get so mired in your own thoughts and ideas, you fail to recognize what’s right in front of you.  Last Halloween, we had a pumpkin carving contest at work.  My department (Marketing) won against Sales, Customer Service and the Warehouse teams.  We’re marketing creative and cool is what we do.  Then, two months later we had a gingerbread house building party.  Once again we were wildly creative but lost out to the Customer Service team.  I figured we paid the Marketing Penalty that we couldn’t win everything, and like our annual awards, it’s pretty much participation and who would win “this time”.    We’d built an awesome gingerbread house with a snowy lawn and a drunken snowball fight between snowmen and gingerbread men.  I was disappointed we didn’t win, but whatever …

Marketing

Customer Service - the winner

We missed the pumpkin carving this year, but they resurrected the gingerbread house contest.  One of my newer coworkers was appointed captain by our boss and she promptly picked a beach theme.  The team worked on this all week.  We planned, plotted, decorated, expanded and (we thought) knocked it out of the park.  We brought our creation out of the lab and scoped out the competition.  It wasn’t even close (in our minds) we had this with totally creative and out of the box thinking and design. 

Marketing 

Well, Customer Service won again.

We were stunned.  Their entry was pretty, but ours was EPIC.  I figured they were just playing nice with the Customer Service team that always takes shit and has a tough job.  Marketing and Sales get all the accolades and awards, the travel and the perks, so let CS have this?  That was all I could think.  Our Captain decided to dig further, whereas the rest of us had simply shrugged our shoulders and given up.  She decided to find out what the “scorecard” was.  Once she had that information it became very clear why the CS team had one and we had lost.  We had this “post-Christmas Santa getaway Beach house” theme, which wasn’t what the judges were looking for at all.  They were judging on “how Christmasy it was” which ours really wasn’t and “how nice the piping was” we didn’t have any piping.  That was the eye-opening moment for me.  We didn’t know where the goal post was, how the hell were we ever going to make the shot?  Instead of looking for what the judges wanted, we gave them what we wanted, and as a result, we lost.  It was an epiphany moment because that would relate to our work as well.  Instead of pushing what WE want on our customer, we need to really dig to find out what the customer WANTS that’s the only way to win.

So, next year, before we take a knife to pumpkin or icing to gingerbread, I’m going to find out what it’s going to be judged on, and do THAT.

Inspiration

It comes in many forms.  Lately I’ve been inspired to get healthy.  I’ve been overweight most of my adult life.  It comes from gluttony and inactivity, pretty simply put.  I sit at a desk for most of my work day.  I sit in a car for 2+ hours a day commuting to work and home.  When I get home, I have a small burst of energy where I do some laundry, empty a dishwasher, make dinner … then my ass becomes one with the couch and I’m done for the night.  Wash, rinse repeat. 

A couple of years ago, during the complete breakdown of my marriage I was going to the gym for 2-3 hours a day.  Sure, could eat whatever I wanted, drank like a fish, and worked it all off.  My inspiration was my best friend; I wanted to be around him as much as I could.  I also wanted to make him proud of me.  But, as life goes on, we ended up quitting the gym, we didn’t have time.  We need to run a house together, build a life together, and apparently get fat together.  He’s like a baby; I’m like a cat, when we are happy we both get fat. (Bare Naked Ladies)

In January this year, one of my online friends introduced me to a weight loss challenge game.  It was interesting, limited alcohol, had you eating more often and smaller portions, it was pretty good, and I lost about 8 lbs on it.  While it ended in February, BHE stepped on the scale and decided it was time he lost some weight.  Cool, now I can do it with him at home.  We fired up our fitbit watches, synced them to the myfitnesspal app and started tracking calories and steps.  In the first month, he lost 20 lbs.  WOW!  Granted, my average day is about 4,000 steps, his is about 20,000 steps.  He cut out a lot of beer and junk and the weight just seems to be melting off him.  I’m so proud, also a little envious.  I’ve been tracking my food, but perhaps a glass or two extra of wine has slowed down my loss.  After 3.5 months I’m down about 25 lbs.  Not eating junk food, eating a LOT more chicken and fish, roasted veggies, snacking on veggies, reduced my carbs … all things that aren’t a diet, but a new way of eating, which is sustainable.

I was feeling a little down on myself today, I’m not happy with my progress, then TCW comes into work (late as usual) and she’s huffing and puffing just getting up one flight of stairs.  She admits she’s at her highest weight ever, I’m guessing she’s pushing 350 lbs.  She’s not healthy, you can see it.  She talks about always being at the pub for cards or darts with her *cough*loser*cough* boyfriend.  It’s showing, the fried pub food, the extra drinks, the extra calories.  We had a meeting last week, that lunch was catered to, and she sat there eating 6-7 mini cinnamon rolls, handfuls of cookies, then for lunch, she had 3 pieces of pizza and a meatball sandwich.  I was amazed, now that I’m conscious about what I put in my body; I’m amazed to watch what other people will put in theirs.  Of course I didn’t say anything, it’s not my place.  Later in the week, she’d made a comment about my weight loss to FCW.  She tried to sound “unimpressed” but FCW said she sounded jealous. 

I’ll take inspiration wherever I can get it.  From BHE’s amazing success to the warning of how bad I could get as TCW is out of breath from one flight of stairs.  I’m not aiming for a size 2, I have a number in mind that I’d like to hit.  I’m doing this slowly, so that it’s sustainable and that I can live a long healthy life with BHE and my two gifts!