Work

We had our annual employee "reviews" today at work. Normally we have done it on an individual basis, but because of the many changes in leadership structure over the last year it was decided that at least for this year we would do group reviews. While we normally leave reviews feeling beat up and discouraged, we all left this year feeling encouraged and excited for the new year. Each department has strengths and weaknesses and our plan is to make the most of our strengths and reverse our weaknesses (or "challenges" as our boss so kindly put it). For the department I am in--Production--there are five action points we need to focus on in the next year. Our company goal for this year is to "work smarter, not harder." In our industry, we are the BEST, hands down. Nobody has products comparable to ours or production quality as high as ours, so that is not the problem. Our challenge is that we now need to find ways to continue with the same high standards of quality while doing it smarter and more efficiently. In order to work smarter this year, we need to:

1. Be more production-minded
2. Spread the load
3. Suck-it-up and get unwanted tasks done ASAP (no more working slow doing a task just because we don't enjoy doing it)
4. Focus and avoid distractions
5. Keep our work areas clean and uncluttered in order to make it easier to work efficiently. (It's incredible how physical clutter around us can slow us down and clutter up our minds as well!)

These line up quite a bit with a list I put on my wall a few years ago following a review then. I thought I would go ahead and list those here too. These are what I keep in the forefront of my mind when working so I will be the best and most efficient worker in our company. (I am not at that goal yet... but certainly working towards it!)

Work Hard
This is pretty self-explanatory. When given a task, I need to work hard and get it done. I am being paid to work, so that is what I must do.

Work Smart
Working hard only goes so far. Working smart is what makes my work profitable. This involves checking myself throughout every task to make sure I am not wasting movement or time in my accomplishing of it.

Listen First
This is what I have always struggled with the most. When I am given a task, I immediately think of a number of questions which I feel I need to have answered before I start. What I often find is that while I am thinking of the questions, my supervisor is still talking and answers most if not all of them before I even have a chance to speak. Then when I ask my questions he is annoyed that he has to repeat himself. LISTENING COMES FIRST! When I am given a task, I need to listen first and not question until I have thoroughly heard everything my supervisor has to say. I have gotten much better with this over the years, but still need to work on it.

Speak Little
This follows close on the heels of listening first. I need to speak only the minimum in order to be most efficient. Why go into pointless detail or waste time trying to make myself sound smarter when a simple question or answer is all that is needed? This also goes for pointless talk. If the talk does not pertain to the task at hand, it is not worth speaking.

Stay Focused
This involves actively keeping my mind on the task at hand and making sure my surroundings make my work more efficient rather than slowing me down. Sometimes listening to music or in my case, books and sermons, is a detriment to my focus. Most always speaking of non-work matters to co-workers causes me and whoever I am talking with to lose focus or at least have less focus on our work causing mistakes or increased production time. Staying focused is key to profitable, quality work.

Be Flexible
When I began work at Walkers, this was my biggest problem. My mind naturally systematizes and works logically. I see things in absolutes. This does not work well for a company that does 100% custom work. I do a task one way and expect to be able to do it that way next time. But when the next time comes, I get thrown off because it has to be done differently in order to serve its purpose for this particular job. Also, in a small company, everyone wears many hats and everyone depends on everyone else. It is not uncommon to be called away from a task to do some other task that at that moment has now become most important. This is true in any company, but especially to very small companies like ours. I cannot sit down with my one task, lock my mind into it and sit and do it the entire day. I instead need to be flexible enough to easily move from task-to-task as is necessary and be able to change my focus as need be. I have come a very long way in this and think it has now become one of my greatest strengths. I can be simultaneously working at many tasks and not be mentally thrown for a loop when something else come down that I need to do.

So that is me. That is what I have learned already, am learning still, and what I am still working on. I hope that by writing this out and thinking it through I will continue to grow into being the best and most profitable employee in our company.

"Jesus Wouldn't Use Bad Words!"

This morning I was reminded of a funny experience I had with the young child of a co-worker a couple of months ago. He was talking with me while I was cleaning walls about how much he likes superheroes. I said, "Well do you know that Jesus is even more incredible than those super heroes?" He asked me what I meant. So I said, "Well, do you know what happened when Jesus was in a boat with His disciples during a terrible storm?" He said "No." So I continued, "It was a terrible storm and his disciples were terrified! But Jesus was not afraid and looked up at the sky and said, 'Shut up!' and it did! The storm stopped immediately! Now that's pretty incredible, I have never heard of a real superhero doing that!" I looked down at him and saw his face white as a sheet with the most incredible look of shock. I asked what was wrong and he forcefully told me, "Jesus would not use bad words!" Oops. I agreed with him and explained that Jesus actually said, "Peace, be still" to the storm. I still can't believe I used such bad words.

What Fires Me Up

I was quite surprised to see that the former PA senator, Rick Santorum, did so well in the Iowa caucuses last night. It shocked me, to be perfectly honest. On Facebook this morning I mentioned how he appears to me to be an angry person and I often refer to him in my mind as the "angry evangelical." What popped into my mind next what the question, "What about you?" The question was less of an accusation and more of a gut check for me. I am an evangelical (though I am significantly opposed to many of the views of the modern "evangelical" movement) and I do have some very strong feelings and do find myself fired up on occasion. So the question is whether I have a right to say in an accusatory way that one person is an "angry evangelical" and I am not. The big difference between me and say, Rick Santorum (or other evangelical conservatives like him), is WHAT and WHO we get fired up about.

I do not get fired up when I see non-Christians that do not act like Jesus. If a person does not follow Jesus, why would I expect them to try and live like him? This is in stark contrast to most of the evangelical church today. They get fired up over "sin" that is "rampant" in this country and in "hollywood" and the "public schools." Then they take that often angry passion to the government where they use violent force force to compel people to look more like Jesus. This manifests itself in laws of prohibition against sexual activities, drugs, bad language, abortion, etc. The question becomes, is this a good thing?

Jesus was a good person and lived a perfect life. He told His followers to be like Him, so that's what we strive by the power of His Spirit to do. But where did He say that we are to use violence to force people to look on the outside like Him even though in reality they don't follow Him? The fact of the matter is that He never said that. Jesus said, "Those who live by the sword die by the sword." Violence gives birth to more violence. What Jesus brought was an alternative to government violence as a means to get people right with God. That was tried by the Israelites in the Old Testament under the Mosaic law and proved to be a miserable failure. By the time Jesus came, the people of Israel were not followers of God, but hypocrites who followed the law on the outside (because of force of violence) even though they were not right with God on the inside where it really counts. What Jesus brought was a better way than force of violence. He brought love and told His followers that they will be known by their "love" not violence.

What fires me up is when people who claim to follow Jesus today, ignore His message and go back to the old way of using violence to make people look right. That is what the vast majority of evangelical conservatives are trying to do today. By doing that, they are misrepresenting Jesus to the whole world. Rather than Jesus being the one who paid the penalty for our wrong so we don't have to, He becomes the policeman ready to hurt you for not doing what is right. THAT IS NOT JESUS.

Jesus showed us what the antidote is to a world drowning in pain and sorrow. The antidote is love, Jesus' love. We don't fight with the weapons of the world, we fight with love. If that's how the church lived, then the world would truly know us for our love. I turned on the Michael Savage show last week and heard a popular evangelical say we need to "wipe [fundamentalist Islamist Palestinians] off the map." It broke my heart. That sounds more like Hitler than Jesus.

The world may use hate against us, but we are called to show only love. It might cost us dearly (in fact, Jesus promised it would), but it is the ONLY way to accurately be Jesus to a lost and dying world.


“Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him... Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come,’ so now I say to you. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” -Jesus (John 13.31-35)

Frustrating

So Hannah is now thirty-eight weeks along in the pregnancy, we are certainly in the final stretch. I took yesterday off of work in order to spend time with Hannah and give her some really good rest and focus time so she would be in a good place for the last few days or couple weeks. It was a good day. But then came the night...

Amity was a TOTAL mess the whole night through. I can safely say that was the WORST night I can remember. She kept Hannah and me up basically the entire night, and that is no exaggeration. Amity cried and screamed the whole night through, "Mommy! I want Mommy!" So we would snuggle her and she would enjoy it but not go to sleep. Then we would put her down in her bed next to ours and the whole process would start again. It was awful. Normally it is not a problem to get her down when she wakes up during the night and I can do it without issue. But last night was just a mess.

I feel like prayer is the only thing that will be able to break the cloud over last night and this morning.

Help us Jesus!!!

Cooking During a Snowstorm

Three cheers for cooking during a rare October snowstorm with no power. Rice and beans for dinner!

"There Is No Condemnation"

by Don Francisco

Sittin' by my window on a rainy afternoon
Everything inside my head was playin' out of tune
I was thinkin' of the fool I'd made of me the night before
In front of God and everyone I'd sinned and sinned some more.

I thought of all the things I'd done, I winced at things I'd said
I wallowed in self-pity, I hung my worried head
Right when I was so far down that even up looked wrong
That's when Jesus gave to me the chorus of this song.

He said, "Satan the Accuser has been whisperin' in your ear"
You just tell him you're forgiven and he's got no business here
'Cause it doesn't matter what you've done
It matters what you'll be
There is no condemnation when the Son has set you free.

Now I could say that right away the sun burst through the clouds
And I just started singin' on the chorus right out loud
But actually I moped around and blew another day
Before I let myself accept the words I'd heard Him say.

He said, "Satan the Accuser has been whisperin' in your ear"
You just tell him you're forgiven and he's got no business here
'Cause it doesn't matter what you've done
It matters what you'll be
There is no condemnation when the Son has set you free.

So I can't criticize you now if you want to take your time
And cling to all your problems just the way I clung to mine
But now you've got the answer Jesus wanted you to know
He'll take your sin and guilt away if you'll just let them go.

There is no condemnation when the Son has set you free.

Leaving Soon

I'll be leaving work in a few minutes. I'm excited for the evening. The
plan is to make some more ginger snaps with the girlies (they love
rolling them into balls) and also bake some pumpkin bread. It will be
fun. I hope the family had a good day. I had quite a bit of shipping to
do today, which was nice. I enjoy shipping a lot more than counting parts.