balance

Just to inject some positivity into this here page of bitching about moronic spammers-

This has been a great day at work for me. I know not everyone is having such a great time (Jason is currently listening to a woman pitch her restaurant for parties “this festive season”), but my own day has been the best I’ve had in a while.

And a big part of that is deciding, this morning, to reset the gears and start over. I was getting in a rut, and the gears needed changing. Somehow the day changed to match me. Gotta like it when we’re both working in synch like that.

Things are changing at the Mill. Bigger companies need more structure to maintain momentum, and there are serious growing pains involved. We have a great staff though, each of us contributing in ways that might not show up on a resume.

We’re stretched thin, with so much going on right now. We’ve doubled in size and we’re working exponentially harder. The stress shows even in the strongest of us, and we all care a lot about each other and that takes work to manage as well. We’re flying forward at a pace none of us could have conceived of a year ago.

How do you be constructively critical without offending? Well, a huge trick is to count on the strength of friendship. Friends can be honest and respectful with each other, and you can both walk away feeling better. Stronger, even. Communication breakdown is the biggest problem, I think, but as long as everyone keeps having those conversations there never comes a point where something is hard to bring up. It’s already been talked about before it ever became a problem, you see?

If everyone knows what’s needed from them, with realistic goals and plenty of feedback, then stress gets knocked down about a dozen notches. Being secure and confident makes everything else a hell of a lot easier to deal with. Knowing you’re doing a good job, and that the job you’re doing is what’s needed from you… Good.

Somehow I started rambling there.

It’s been a good day for me. It may take a two hour conversation to get there, but what’s two hours to make a smooth highway?