Tuesday, April 12, 2016

A Little Healthy "Competition" Can Sometimes Be Good in the Work Place



Raise your hand if you've ever been in a meeting where there's this one person who always has the best ideas?  Or, at least they think they do.  Maybe it's your co-worker.  Maybe it's you.  Maybe, it's me.

While discussing plans for an upcoming office party today, I suddenly thought, "Hey, we've all got such great ideas!"  Which is a big step for me.  To be honest, I have a tendency to sit in these types of meetings and often think, "What the heck is she talking about?"  Or, "Did he really just suggest that?"

But this morning, maybe I had just the right amount of coffee, I thought, "Brainstorming is definitely the way to go."  Maybe you don't all agree.  Maybe none of you agree. But, usually, something good comes out of the end result.

So what if you didn't think of the gerber daisy arrangements.  You wanted peonies.  But, hey, perhaps peonies are highly overrated.

They said "serve champagne," you said, "Serve margaritas."  As long as everyone gets a nice buzz, it's all good, right?

Same goes for the person who just had to get their hands on your "fung shei" and copied your air terrarium.  Well, somebody had to have it first.  And they made more than one.  And yes, I plan to totally steal her air terrarium idea.

So, instead of building resentments when people come in wearing your purple suede pumps the week after you wore them first, feel flattered.  Besides, you probably wore them best.  


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"Healthy Competition" is the operative word. However, it is not "Healthy Competition" when, oftentimes, an unpopular colleague (me) will have an idea and everyone acts like they're not paying attention or pretend I'm wacked for thinking of it in the first place. Then, next thing I know somebody is getting recognized at a special meeting with a big fat check and roses for my idea that was ignored when I presented it.
I don't want to sound like sour grapes, but I'm sure I'm not the only legal secretary who has had this happen.