Lunch Lady Land is officially re-open for business! Well....almost.
School starts on Wednesday. As a city schools employee, I received notification in the mail last week that I was to attend "customer service training" on Monday (today), followed by CPR training. Tomorrow we report to the kitchen to work 'until done', presumably getting everything dusted off, reassembled, stocked and ready to go when the surge of fresh little faces comes through the lines on Wednesday.
I was unsure of what to expect in three hours of 'customer service training', but oh....oh, ye Gods, the reality surpassed my imagination. Initially lulled into complacency by the fresh bagels and passable coffee at the door, I greeted familiar faces and settled in. As photocopies were passed around, my eyes glazed and my heart sank in horrified comprehension. Michael Scott would have felt right at home. I felt as though my spleen were attempting to reach up and throttle me.
Yes, my friends, I had unwittingly walked right into....a motivational seminar.
The title of said seminar was - I kid you not - FISH! Sticks. This is a genuine motivational package employed by many companies, based on the business practices of the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, Washington. A kitschy little program in the same vein as "The One Minute Manager" and "Hey! Who Moved My Freakin' Cheese?". We were shown a 17-minute video on "how do they keep the vision alive?" laced with inspiring jargon and vague niceties, the gist of which was:
1. We can use the words "vision" and "commit" many, many times in seventeen minutes, and often many times per sentence.
2. We can tell when someone is being inconsistent with the vision by refusing to have fun.
3. We used to be a boring place to work, as people had to walk allllll the way around the counter to retrieve fish for customers. Now we throw fish at each other, and it is lighthearted and hilarious!
Folks, there was more! There were team exercises. There was slogan writing. There were brightly colored stuffed fish, which were tossed to us as prizes for participating in discussion. Commit it, be it, coach it. What does vision mean to you? What does it mean to BE a vision? Commit to the vision. Have a vision of the commitment. You know, I thought, I'm having a vision of my own commitment right now!
One of the final exercises of the long morning involved us calling out what we like to see in our fellow employees and ourselves, as the speaker sketched appropriately labeled little fish to the whiteboard. "Loyal!" someone chimed in. "Dependable!" trilled another.
"Breaded, with a nice tartar sauce?"I volunteered. Mostly titters, a few odd looks. I shrugged. "Hey, it's lunchtime."
I've got to give her points for good humor. Amongst all the friendly, dependable, honest, hardworking little fish, she did indeed add a "breaded with a nice tartar sauce" fish.
School starts on Wednesday. As a city schools employee, I received notification in the mail last week that I was to attend "customer service training" on Monday (today), followed by CPR training. Tomorrow we report to the kitchen to work 'until done', presumably getting everything dusted off, reassembled, stocked and ready to go when the surge of fresh little faces comes through the lines on Wednesday.
I was unsure of what to expect in three hours of 'customer service training', but oh....oh, ye Gods, the reality surpassed my imagination. Initially lulled into complacency by the fresh bagels and passable coffee at the door, I greeted familiar faces and settled in. As photocopies were passed around, my eyes glazed and my heart sank in horrified comprehension. Michael Scott would have felt right at home. I felt as though my spleen were attempting to reach up and throttle me.
Yes, my friends, I had unwittingly walked right into....a motivational seminar.
The title of said seminar was - I kid you not - FISH! Sticks. This is a genuine motivational package employed by many companies, based on the business practices of the Pike Place Fish Market in Seattle, Washington. A kitschy little program in the same vein as "The One Minute Manager" and "Hey! Who Moved My Freakin' Cheese?". We were shown a 17-minute video on "how do they keep the vision alive?" laced with inspiring jargon and vague niceties, the gist of which was:
1. We can use the words "vision" and "commit" many, many times in seventeen minutes, and often many times per sentence.
2. We can tell when someone is being inconsistent with the vision by refusing to have fun.
3. We used to be a boring place to work, as people had to walk allllll the way around the counter to retrieve fish for customers. Now we throw fish at each other, and it is lighthearted and hilarious!
Folks, there was more! There were team exercises. There was slogan writing. There were brightly colored stuffed fish, which were tossed to us as prizes for participating in discussion. Commit it, be it, coach it. What does vision mean to you? What does it mean to BE a vision? Commit to the vision. Have a vision of the commitment. You know, I thought, I'm having a vision of my own commitment right now!
One of the final exercises of the long morning involved us calling out what we like to see in our fellow employees and ourselves, as the speaker sketched appropriately labeled little fish to the whiteboard. "Loyal!" someone chimed in. "Dependable!" trilled another.
"Breaded, with a nice tartar sauce?"I volunteered. Mostly titters, a few odd looks. I shrugged. "Hey, it's lunchtime."
I've got to give her points for good humor. Amongst all the friendly, dependable, honest, hardworking little fish, she did indeed add a "breaded with a nice tartar sauce" fish.
3 comments:
Wow! And I thought I was the cynical one!! Speaking as a leadership candidate at my place of employment, I have received training on the “Fish!”, and actually do employee it in many projects that I have managed, and inject the premise into my team. I am certain that it has helped to avoid several acts to mutiny.
ah, the old "Fish!" motivational seminar ... ever so fitting for lunch lady land. :O) at the very least, it was entertaining, no?
welcome back, missed you here ...
I'm so pleased to see you are back at the keyboard, Duncansmom!
Here are the words that send a shiver down my spine at such classes: "Next we'll break into groups..."
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