Wednesday, August 10, 2022

August Happiness Challenge -- Day 10

Today's happiness -- My baby's back! (Pun intended) 

My friend John teases me that I love Anthony Rizzo as intensely as if I'd birthed him. Guilty as charged.

I only get to luxuriate in my favorite ballplayer six months a year, so I  felt it keenly when he was out for five games with lower back tightness.* First of all, I missed him. Secondly, it felt so unfair that he was out on his birthday. No one should feel crappy on his birthday, least of all Rizz!

But today he was back in the lineup. He went 0-4. His timing is off, but he'll rebound.

Also, while I was concentrating on the Yankees, the real team of my heart, the Cubs, beat the Nationals. I love baseball!

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.

 


 *In 2019-20, he and I shared a chiropractor. I touched his framed jersey every time I went back for my treatment, much to the amusement of the office staff.

Thursday Thirteen #270

Thirteen items for a back-to-school shopping list. It's been a long, long time since I was a student. But that doesn't stop me from noticing that the back-to-school aisles at Target and Walgreen's are starting to buzz. So here are the things parents are shopping for:

1. Backpacks

2. Face masks. (Yes, still. Want to be prepared if/when that next variant hits.)

3. Folders

4. #2 Pencils

5. Colored pencils

6. Blue or black ballpoint pens

7. Crayons

8. Glue or glue stick

9. Highlighters

10. Markers

11. Spiral or composition books

12. Calculator (yes, there's an app for that, but teachers aren't always crazy about kids having phones in-hand during class)

13. Scissors

Every year, my mom sent me to the first day of school with  a new protractor. To this day I'm not sure what it was for, but I used it as a straight edge for art class. Therefore I'm not surprised to see protractor is not on the list, but I did expect to see "ruler."

Did this list take you back? What do you remember buying for back-to-school?


Please join us for THURSDAY THIRTEEN. Click here to play along, and to see other interesting compilations of 13 things.


August Happiness Challenge -- Day 9

Today's happiness -- Feeling Heard. Upper management does not understand my client. They are a Fortune 50 company, a position they achieved by being the tortoise, not the hare. They are the epitome of slow and steady. So as much as I enjoyed last week's brainstorm, I couldn't help thinking it was a waste of time. It was just another innovative idea the client didn't ask for and won't ever implement (and therefore won't pay for).

I have ideas the client would go for. They are not exciting. They will not win my agency awards or get us written up in Ad Age. But my client would appreciate them, even if the late-and-not-lamented Alex dismissed them as "small ball."

So I have been suffering chronic frustration every day. Until Tuesday.

It was my team's day to work onsite. James, a VP, grabbed me by the elbow and sat me down in a secluded part of the office. He thinks I'm an asset and asked me how I felt  things were going. I told him. He was very receptive -- and I found out he's as frustrated as I am. It seems he's been working 60-hour weeks on projects like last week's brainstorm, and missing summer weekends with his wife and daughter to work on initiatives that won't go anywhere.

In Tuesday afternoon's team meeting, he shared my idea! Giving me a nod, he said, explained that the client has a branded information portion of their website.* Much of our digital communications -- emails, banners, etc. -- drives consumers to this area. And it sucks. Hundreds of the articles are old, or repetitive, or send consumers to broken links (webpages that no longer exist). Why don't we audit the site for them? We could report to our client what's there, what should come down and what should be added. We could actually add value and give them something they need, not something we want to do.

By the way, this "small ball" idea of mine would result in literally 100 hours of billing for our agency. No industry buzz, but revenue.

It's now on "the list." It's the third item on "the list," but it's there. 

James listened to me. James acted. I was heard.

Each day in August you are to post about something that makes *you* happy. Pretty simple. And, it doesn't even have to be every day if you don't want it to be. It's a great way to remind ourselves that there are positive things going on in our lives, our communities, and the world.


*How could our upper management not know this portion of the website exists? It's indicative of what's wrong with how we handle this account.