Following on from \u201cPlan For The Unexpected<\/span>\u201d explaining a valuable lesson I learned from a close friend, I would like to offer another.
This one is from another friend. He had CEO experience in dealing with organisations and people. He possessed skills that would have truly benefitted me, but I had to gain them over many years of painful learning.
You see, since I was 22, I have worked by myself. Yes, I had customers I served daily, but that is much different to actually having work colleagues. People thrown together for many hours a day.
When I first started SEP summer camp, I used to upset people. I was a Christian, but a rather awful one. I was efficient at what I did, but not very sociably adept. I riled people to say the least. I didn\u2019t mean to, but it happened.
I used to get three weeks every summer to learn how to be amenable. It took many years, but eventually, with practice, I learned. In fact, I learned so well that by the time my story starts I am actually doing better than most of the experienced ones. I could go to summer camp and not be aware that I had trod on any one\u2019s toes. But I could now see many others doing so with each other.
Despite these improvements in my demeanour, I have to show some dirty laundry. My dirty laundry! This is how I learned it.
Over 20 years ago, one of my jobs at summer camp was as Safety Officer. I have always been very observant and would notice things that others have missed. It was a perfect fit for me. I have always been a perfectionist and try to make the best job of anything I do each day. I don\u2019t cut corners. I like my ducks to be in a row, hence the title of this article. I like everything done in an orderly fashion.
Well, one of the most important things that has to take place fairly early on is a fire drill. It is especially important that, in the event of some emergency, we all know where everyone is. Extra attention is made for the kids. Each counsellor is responsible for accounting for their dorm members and a team of staff members account for every adult in their alphabet range.
We had the \u201clearn how\u201d one at the beginning of camp and all was well. We are required to have another about a week later. This time everything appeared to go well too. The kids were all lined up ready to be counted and the staff were almost all assembled.
Now although what I am about to describe happened with everyone assembled, the kids were some distance away and probably not aware. However, the staff were. One of the most important things a safety officer has to do is to make people realise that they need to take safety seriously. I took this to heart and expected everyone to follow the rules and assemble immediately. To actually behave as if this was an emergency.
Just as everything seemed to be ready and all the responsible people were counting numbers, a lady wandered out of the main tent. Probably five minutes behind everyone else. Not only was she late but she was ambling. She behaved as if she had all the time in the world and nothing really mattered.
This lady was married to a prominent member of camp and perhaps I felt that she should have known better. Not only was she travelling a snail\u2019s pace she also had a drink in one hand, a fork in the other and was trying to eat off a plate precariously balanced as she walked. Hence the slow pace no doubt!
Anyway, to my immense shame I shouted at her. I shouted in front of everyone. Several would have heard me do so. I told her to take the drill seriously and \u201cordered\u201d her to put down her meal and get to the assembly line. Or, at least I think it went like that. All I remember was that it wasn\u2019t one of my finest moments as a Christian, or even as a human being.
This lady has since died. She probably wasn\u2019t that young when all this happened. So, I not only shouted at a lady, I actually shouted at an older lady. Also, to my shame I don\u2019t remember apologising to her for my bad behaviour. And, as with most things that happen like that, it is now too late to address. I just hope I see her in the Kingdom and can say I am very sorry for my appalling bad manners then.
It was some time after we had returned home that I met my friend. How this came up exactly, I am not sure. He may have witnessed it first hand, or maybe someone complained about me. However, the advice he gave me has, like the one in the last article, stood me in good stead for improving my character traits over the years.
As I said before, I am a perfectionist. I had a blind spot in not understanding that not everyone else is too. I expected them to at least try to be organised. I hate chaos and confusion. My ducks have to be lined up. I even make sure all the labels face out in my larder and the cans on top of each other are perfectly aligned with each other!
What sage advice was offered me?
HOWEVER HARD YOU TRY, HOWEVER MUCH EFFORT YOU EXPEND, HOWEVER ORGANISED YOU ARE, THERE WILL ALWAYS BE SOMEONE THAT WON\u2019T DO WHAT YOU EXPECT THEM TO.<\/span>
In other words, expect someone to not play ball! AND be ready for it to happen.
Having learnt this, I now expect that someone, somewhere will behave differently to what I had anticipated when organising events. I allow for this in advance and almost expect it to happen rather than the opposite.
I can be more relaxed and then can be more relaxed around others in return.
It is unfortunate that I had to learn this lesson in such a personally embarrassing situation, but learned I have and now I have passed this on to you, you can be ready in advance. You won\u2019t have to make the same learning mistakes as I made back then.
I have now covered two lessons that have been graciously given to me by others, In my next article I will get down to something I have perfected for myself. I will show you how to tackle making sure that each thing you have to do, each day, is completed successfully.<\/p>\n{“title”:””,”nav_menu”:”9″}\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1393,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-312","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccog.uk\/wps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccog.uk\/wps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccog.uk\/wps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccog.uk\/wps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccog.uk\/wps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=312"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ccog.uk\/wps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1417,"href":"https:\/\/ccog.uk\/wps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/312\/revisions\/1417"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ccog.uk\/wps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ccog.uk\/wps\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}