Making Time for Happiness

One thing I really like about my new job, is that no one ever says to me "You are so weird."  I know I am not a cookie cutter person and have my own unique traits, but I am good-natured and have never insulted a colleague.  OK, if they were a good friend, I might do it as a joke.  So at my last job, I sometimes felt like an outsider or that I was looked down on if I suggested anything even remotely out of the ordinary.  Since no one ever wanted to try anything new, that was most of the time.  It was very hard to motivate people to do anything extra or remotely group-like.  Regardless, I always kept a stock of birthday and sympathy cards in my desk and never failed to miss a birthday or to provide a way for us to offer condolences for a colleague's loss.  I was the only person who on my team who participated in the office-wide birthday club or who signed up to attend or work at events.



I feel much more at ease in my new environment and like the fact that the group is always open to interacting.  Our daily banana for the dogs time is great.  I give one of the architects two bananas and we all end up saying "That's bananas - that's b-a-n-a-n-a-s!"  Everyone stops what they are doing and enjoys the minute it takes.  Today, we had a banana eating contest between Teddy and Ziggy.  Teddy won.  We dropped two bananas at the same time to see who would finish first.  No one ever saw Teddy's banana after it was dropped.

Another thing I've started, is Souper Tuesday where I bring in soup.  It's a little bit of extra work, but everyone stops in the middle of the day and we eat soup together.  We talk about lots of stuff, some of it work related, some of it industry related, lots of it Western NY related.  I've also got a list of everyone's birthday and we are celebrating them.  And no one thinks this is weird, and no one grumbles about it or refuses to participate.

I think that with work and busy lives, it's a good thing to find small ways and reasons to have fun. It's just unfortunate that this can't happen in so many workplaces due to the culture.  And, I'm not weird!