We had just pulled out on our way camping last week when something reminded K of a story from years ago. We were both working at REI. A bunch of us from Marketing were volunteering at the local food bank a few blocks north of the Kent campus. On that particular day, they had us boxing up carrots. It was always orderly chaos, with vegetables or other produce flying as we raced another company to see who could package up the most.
At the table K was working, there was an older guy she didn’t know. He was pretty quiet, she recalled. As things wound down and folks whisked as many of the remaining carrots into bags to then go into boxes, K watched that guy take a single carrot, place it in a bag, and send it down the conveyor.
A few moments later, another Katie who was running the boxing station held up the single-bagged carrot and shouted, ‘Alright, who did this!?’ Silence. My Katie remembers the guy chuckling to himself. No one suspected and the chaos picked back up.
When she’s older, K said she wants to be like that guy. Do silly things that no one suspects. Remember to have fun.
The idea of having fun at work is a big one for me. It’s tough running a solo business, even tougher cut off from the rest of the world left for the moment to put together virtual programs. I admittedly haven’t cracked the have-fun-while-facing-a-computer code yet. Her story was a good reminder to me though that it’s important to have fun. Especially at work.
