Yesterday I was venting to my team about a frustrating situation. Can I tell you how nice it is to have a group of supportive and loving women to chat with? So many kind words of advice and encouragement. I am grateful for their friendship! To help cheer me up, Jackie sent an article that she had recently written for a quilting publication. It was absolutely hilarious. I had no idea she was such a talented writer. She has been hiding it all this time. Brooke suggested that I post one of Jackie’s articles on my blog. Well, I did one better. I asked Jackie to write a short little story about our team. When I received it tonight I laughed so hard I nearly peed my pants. I loved it! She has a great sense of humor and used a lot of sarcasm to depict her idea of my perspective on the team. I hope that you enjoy it and I hope that you laugh, too!
Here is the story:
Once upon a time, there were eight little girls who went to the Stitch Academy; and they were each assigned very hazardous duties. But I took them away from all that, and now they work for me. My name is Charlie Amanda.
Do you remember Charlie’s Angels? I always saw myself as Jaclyn Smith, but sadly the mirror didn’t reflect the same picture. So I took on the role of Charlie. I envisioned Charlie to be a savvy, sophisticated person, who just happened to be a rich and famous fabric designer.
So far I am right on track with that dream. Okay, I did spill my kids cereal down my pants this morning, so maybe not the savvy part. And I did walk out of my last meeting and see that I had skipped a button while doing my shirt up that morning, so probably not sophisticated. As for the rich and famous, well, considering I am writing this in Utah, guess that is self explanatory.
What do I have in common with Charlie? Well I do have 8 girls who I recruited to be part of my design team. These girls perform feats with fabric beyond my wildest dreams.
It is coming up to our 1 year anniversary, so I am going to enlighten you with some of the reasons I hired them.
Let’s start with Jana. ( for the life of me, I don’t know what I will do when I meet her in person. Do I say her name like Yana, with a silent ‘J’, or do I pronounce the ‘J’?) I will probably just refer to her as the ‘J-girl’. It will make her feel special, like I have a pet name just for her. And not that I have no idea how to say her name, and in the year she has worked for me, never bothered to ask.
Jana’s claim to fame on the team is that she has mastered sewing under water. No joke! Her house flooded, not once but twice. The first time she kind of whined about it, but being the trooper that she is, when it happened the second time, she got a waterproof electrical cord, donned on her scuba gear and got to work. She did note that she saved a step, and didn’t have to prewash the fabric. That’s our Jana, or Yana, or banana, or whatever the heck her name is.
Then there is Candice. Sweet golden Candy (I don’t even know if she likes it when I shorten it to Candy, but I do it anyway). She is so freakin’ upbeat and happy, and did I mention upbeat. When you give her a job, she just skips away singing sweetly. I like that about her, well I did for the first 364 days of the year, but after that, could you just for once be cranky? Geesh already, have you never had a bad day?
Johanna lives in Germany. Okay, I don’t really remember if it is Germany. I just know it isn’t the U.S. She writes her blog in both English and German. I am not really sure it is German, it could be gobbly goo for all I know. I think she just does it to sound smart. Apparently she is still in university. Don’t even get me started on how unfair it is that someone that young can be given that much talent.
Stephanie is a real hoot. If you want to know about effectively managing people, or how to get along with others, she takes the time to clearly explain why you are wrong. Love that about her. Really.
Bubbly Brooke, the one gal cheering squad of the Angels. Occasionally, okay often, one of the team has a bad day and vents. There is Brooke giving words of encouragement in not just one email, but 50. And to whoever needs it, and even to those who don’t. Every. Single. Day.
Singing Sally. Literally. She sings in a band. I just hired her to go on fabric assignments and create masterpieces, which she does flawlessly. But she doesn’t stop there, she sings about it. And she still doesn’t stop there, she posts videos on her blog and asks you to listen to them. I haven’t had the heart to tell her that I am tone deaf, and have no idea if she is good or not. She tells me that she is, so I just go with that. It would probably help too if I actually hit the ‘play’ button on the video.
Julie is the explosive one on the team. No, she doesn’t use dynamite, well not that I know of anyway. But she came onto the scene with her little blog and her quiet ways and suddenly out of nowhere, BAMM! She opens up an etsy shop, sells fabric like crazy, blog followers jumps from 8 to 550 and she gets 200 emails a day! Who gets that many emails? I get maybe 20, and 17 are from myself to make me feel popular. Yep, she is super to have on the team. Really great for my self esteem. Really.
Last is Jackie. She is from Canada. Do I need to say more than that? What the heck goes on up there anyway? All I know is that I mail her stuff and the rest of the team has the project sewn up and she is still saying she didn’t get the fabric. I am beginning to think that maybe she is just the slow one of the group. There is one on every team. That’s probably it.
Thanks to Jackie for that wonderful story. It sure made MY day!
