Flower Memories

Many of my memories of people are cemented in as association with flowers. In the olden days, we got Mother's Day corsages for our grandmas to wear to church on Mothers Day. Grandma Getty loved softer things and we got her pink and Grandma Theresa loved brighter bolder things and we got her deep red. It was often a white carnation with accents of the color in baby roses with a matching ribbon or the carnation was the color with white baby roses. Grandpa Getty grew tiger lilies in the corner of their house and I remember standing under them and looking up at the flowers. There were those tiny white clover flowers in their lawn and we would pick them and take them in and Grandma would put them in a tiny bottle, maybe an old perfume or medicine bottle. Grandma Theresa had tall yellow flowers, Golden Glow, in the corner of the house where her rain barrel was and she would flick the water beetles off the surface and get us a dipper of cool water to drink. I don't think mother knew about that. My sister and I went rogue and abandoned the florist's book of photos to draw up our own designs for Mother's funeral flowers, shamefully abundant in yellow roses and lilies that we knew she loved. The cashier cried when she found out whose funeral it was because she would save out deliveries of flowers to Mother for last so she could go up and visit with her. We didn't know that about our mother until then. I made my sister's gardenia bouquets for her wedding and almost passed out from the fragrance in the cooler when I bent down to put some things into the big box. My friend's bridesmaid bouquets were pink roses and daisies and we all tucked Kleenex into our bouquets so they would be there when we cried during the service, but they touched the floral foam in the holders and absorbed the water and became sodden useless masses which we each discovered one at a time during the service and tried not to laugh as we caught each others' eyes.I weeded for a woman who had cancer and wasn't supposed to work outdoors due to lowered immunity from chemo and I took my toddler along to play in the grass while I worked.  She came and got him and played with him on her patio, probably totally negating the whole "stay away from germs" thing, then took me on a tour of her garden when I went to collect him and showed me her double flowering white trillium.  Dwight has the awesome crabapple that we gather under.  Enid was fond of my various magnolias and asked their names.  I dug celandine poppy and wild ginger with Katie for her yard.  Sherri and I rescued green dragons in a dramatic last dash to the development site after it was technically closed to our group.  I cleaned and spaced geraniums in the greenhouse for Ivan on my first after school job.  My high school friends went together and bought me a cyclamen plant and the "War is not healthy for children and other living things" pendant for my birthday.  My mother in law put peonies in these glass water filled globes and later gave one to me.  My friend from landscape design school decided I was a better designer than he was. so he hired me to design things for his clients and he always made me include a Rose of Sharon.  I think of him when I am surprised by their bloom in the fall.  Pat Armstrong protects her prairie smoke plants with wet newspaper when she lets us help burn her prairie garden.  My sons and I would go on the ritual skunk cabbage hunt right after our spring break trip to Arizona every year, to reassure ourselves that coming back from the warmth of the desert was not a mistake.  What flowers memories do you link to people you love?

If You Are Someones Boss, Don't Be A Prick

I remember it like it was the day before yesterday, though some aspects may be slightly augmented for effect, I will admit. I was in his office for some tiny project related slip, though the blame was probably shared by others who had refused to do their jobs such as requirements developers who left gaps or failed to communicate the details effectively. He asked why I had made such a giant horrible mistake and I began to explaining, "Well, I assumed that . . . " and before I could complete my thought, he was up out of his chair and at the white board. There, he dramatically and with great proud flourish, wrote in giant capital letters, ASSUME. He then said "Never assume, for when you assume, you make and ASS", where upon he enthusiastically drew a huge circle around the A and the two S's and continued, "out of YOU", whereupon he circled the capital U, "and ME", as, you guessed it, he put a circle about the M and the E. He confidently finished with a smug smile, then snapped the marker shut, dropped it onto the rail under the board, and dusted off his hands for final emphasis, a move I . . . assume . . . is a holdover from when he lorded over employees in the age of chalk boards instead of the dustless white boards of the day.

I felt crushed, demoralized, demeaned, dismissed, and instead of leaving after a conversation where I learned how to better interact with coworkers to get information I needed and he learned where the gaps in communication among his people were such that he could better manage then, I dropped to my knees to kiss his scuffed crappy brown cheap leather shoes, and crawled out into the hallway to slink back to my desk and try to figure it out on my own. Actually, I probably rounded up a couple sympathizers and took a two hour lunch, but that is neither here nor there.

Assume. We must assume. It is a critical asset to daily life. We assume we are supposed to return to work each day and complete the project as defined weeks earlier and that if the scope or direction changes, our manager will tell us. We assume that people in other areas are doing their jobs and that our manager is keeping up with that so that our piece will come together with other pieces at the right time and in the right way. We assume that certain processes and procedures have been followed by others. We assume that in the best interests of all, we have been given the correct and true information and will have access to certain resources to do our job. And that we assume makes the manager's job easier. Repeat:  That we assume a set of things makes our manager's job easier because he or she is relieved of constantly having to reiterate the obvious and reassure us of continuity.

Imagine if I were to stop by his office every day and ask if I still was to come in to work the next day and continue work on the project. Imagine if every bit of information I got, I came to him for verification. Imagine if I stopped by several times a day and asked if anything had changed about the project. Imagine if I spent great parts of my day checking and double checking and second guessing and reaffirming. What a nuisance I would become.

No, dammit, John, we assume a great many things a great many times a day, in work and in every aspect of the real world, and I hate you for your lapse of management that day.

You seemed clever and powerful, but you were a toad. I hope you have warts. Actually, I hope you have somehow learned your lesson and found ways to manage that are not so demeaning to those whom you entrusted to manage.

If YOU are a manager, do NOT use the cheap trick of mocking your employee for assuming or for using the word.  Instead, do the managerial work of helping ferret out where the errors in assumption were and fix what you can as a manager and teach your employee to communicate more effectively in the future.  

Service Without Gods

Where do ethics come from?  Where does responsibility to other people originate?  With religion? With your god? From a following of a religious teacher? In obedience to a set of rules?
Too many times we read the mission of a service organization that is full of reference to gospel and following Jesus or it being faith based.  But if you strip the Jesus and God and gospel and faith out of it, what is left?  Are you doing 'good' to curry favor with your god to ensure your salvation or your good standing?  If so, is it really service to others, or merely service to yourself? 
Why do you want to help, to be a 'do gooder'?  Is there something you are trying to 'pay back' bcause someone did good for you?  Is there something you are trying to 'make up for' because you did harm?  Does it just feel good?  Or is it just who you are?
And why do we have to explain?  "What motivates you?" Why do we have to have answers for that?  Shouldn't it just be how we are?  Shouldn't it just be 'regular' and not stand out as especially unique?
A mother feeds a child, a father takes a hand, a grandmother gives a hug, you sit down next to a person.  It's what we do.  Offering help is just that. 
If you think a person doing good wants some recognition, go ahead and ask them.  But if they seem reluctant to explain, let them be.  Don't ask for reasons or explanations.  Just say thanks, if you must, but even that might not be necessary if doing good and right are just who we are an what we do. 
Maybe instead of asking why or even thanking, we should just take the example and do something good ourselves.