kitty
i love my kitty’s expression in this picture.
it's like she's sayin "whatever".
vulgar
people i respect have been causing me to re-think how and why we use certain words. (see previous post about agnosticism, for instance. when someone says “agnostic” today, it’s not it’s original meaning.)
i’ve wondered since i was a kid why some words were “bad” and some weren’t. take “shit” for instance. who decided “shit” would be the “bad word”, and “shoot” would be okay? and why in the world do i have to adhere to that? a word is a word. just because you say it doesn’t make it bad. i can tell someone “you’re the shit!” and that’s quite a compliment. if i say “you look like shit”, well, that’s not. it’s quite often about context. either way, i’ve always wondered how words become “bad” or “good”, and who gets to decide that.
another word that is often used incorrectly or out of context is the word “vulgar”. this was brought to my mind upon reading an article that a friend posted on twitter called “vulgar christianity”. the article itself is very interesting, as well as the comments.
take a read…
Agnostic?
David Dark tends to write what I think and don’t know how to say. Which is okay because he’s much smarter than I am and he’s a literary genius and scholar. And a believer.
I’ve tried to figure out how to explain myself. I’m a believer. A Christ-follower. I believe in God, and in his power to change lives. I also admit that I don’t know everything and CAN’T know everything. That’s the very essence of faith. My faith and agnosticism go hand in hand. If I think I can know – that I can “get God”, understand him, know for SURE anything – than I don’t need faith. At that point it becomes science.
I should say here that my faith is stronger since accepting that I can’t know, admitting I have doubts and questions about our practice of our faith, etc, than I ever did beforehand.
I should also mention that I’m referring to agnostic in the original sense of the word. The root word meaning “knowledge” and the “a-” meaning “without”. In our current culture people lump agnostics with athiests and they are in no way the same. (Check out wikipedia for various types of both, and read the history of the word online. What it means today is very skewed from its roots.)
Check out the article. Quite interesting.
Manage vs. Lead
This is something that I’ve thought often about. What the heck is the difference anyway? My title is a “manager”, but when people have told me they see me more as a leader than a manager, I take that as a compliment – not really even knowing why.
So I googled the darned thing. According to one article: things are managed – people are led.
Ah. Well, clears that right up!
I’ve always led/managed from the standpoint of “leading by example” – perhaps results take a bit longer, but when we get them – BOY do we get them, because people are more on board and committed and they see I am, too. I like the above definition: I DO manage my P&L, my inventory, my schedule, my orders, etc. But lately, I’m feeling as if I’m supposed to manage my people, too. Perhaps this comes from the top down, as things like this usually do. I’m not at a place anymore where I feel like I’m being LED. Where I feel like I’m following a leader who is there to aid and support me when necessary, but will allow me to make and learn from mistakes, stumble a bit, not chew me the heck out, encourage me when I do well, etc.
No, I – a PERSON – am being managed like I’m a task. There’s not a decision in my job that I actually make right now. I’m told who I can and can’t hire, what I can and can’t order, how and what to display and merchandise where. I’m a pawn to whatever the manager above me thinks needs to be done. However, when it fails or doesn’t work, I’m supposed to somehow be accountable to that and explain what went wrong.
This is stifling. I believe I’m a damned good manager, and have had some damned fine training and leadership (thank you KL, JJDW, and SR for your example!). When I’m actually allowed to do my job, things get done, and they get done to standard. Employees have the resources they need. The store is set up well. Staffed well. And you know what? Whether we’re making sales targets or not, the store is profitable. Why? Because I know how to manage the things that need managed, and lead the team to do the right thing. And it’s like good karma. You do the right thing, and the right thing happens. Weird, huh?
As it is now, I’ve begun to deflect, telling my employees, “This is coming from above my head, and I may not understand it but we need to execute it flawlessly”. Because if nothing else we’re going to do things as good as they can be done. (Well, if I ever have time to lead them down that road.) Most of the time I’m managing my store to the district’s lowest common denominator, having to make decisions to make up for poor managers of the past who screwed things up for all of us and weren’t held accountable for their actions until it was too late, if at all.
One day, I hope to be able to lead people, and manage just the tasks. And also, I myself want to be led, not managed. Some people use these words interchangeably. I think that’s drastically incorrect. If you’ve ever experienced both, you know they’re definitely not the same. Below is a random article Google found for me. I thought it had some good points.
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