Wouldn’t life be a cup of tea if all our interactions and
decisions were based on a reward system based on life’s little pleasures?
$$ would be worthless and the only compensation for a
“job well done” would be a mountain of homemade melt-in-your-mouth chocolate
chip cookies and an entire day with a roomful of puppies.
Perhaps you’d prefer a weekend in a cabin on a white
sandy beach, a redwood forest or atop a remote mountaintop.
You’d rule the paradise of your choosing.
No budget to adhere to.
No stress over getting work done so you can play. No aftermath of coming back to an overflowing
desk, dozens of phone calls to return and the agony of getting back in step to a
dance that you have grown to dislike.
Nice fantasy.
And it is just that, a fantasy.
Kind of….
Let’s land back on Earth for a spell and let me take you
back in time about 25 years.
I was fresh out of college with an Associate of Applied
Science degree in business marketing and management. A month before graduation I snagged a job as
the marketing director for the small local mall. Quite a catch at the time, even though the
pay was low and the hours were long, I was quite pleased with myself!
I shared my office space with the mall manager, an
amazing woman, a good 12 years my junior, who was full of life and an overall
outstanding human being. We quickly
became friends and she was a priceless ally as I learned the ropes of marketing
a shopping mall and keeping dozens of individual store owners/managers
happy.
Here’s where the story gets interesting.
Retail management of any type requires juggling skills
only a skilled parent can master. Nobody
is “happy” at the same time and what makes Joe jump for joy makes Jill throw a
tantrum and scream till her throat is raw and I stepped into a nursery school
full of merchants disenchanted with the former marketing directors.
In their eyes, they were “in the trenches” 7 days a week,
struggling to make ends meet, face-to-face with their customers, rain or shine,
for better or worse while “management” sat in their quiet offices oblivious to
what was happening on the front lines.
For the most part, the marketing director’s part, they
were likely spot on. It was a small
town, with a small mall, ran by a large management company in Omaha who knew
little about the small local market yet made all the financial rules, including
the salary of the marketing director. I
understood that when push came to shove, the hours worked and the pay received,
at some point, bred an attitude of “I don’t need the stress of making everyone
happy, so I’m just going to sit at my desk and paint my nails today.”
I didn’t want to be that marketing director, even though ultimately
I did leave for a better paying job, I didn’t want to drop the ball just because
the pay sucked. These were still people
with kids to feed and mortgages to pay and they were depending on my help.
The attendance at monthly merchants meetings was dismal
and out of 50 or so merchants I was lucky to get 6 to come.
Now keep in mind, I have a simple mind. Anything more complicated than 2x2 makes my
stomach churn and my head hurt.
I had to ask myself, “How the heck do you get a “village”
to come to you when their comfort zones didn’t even go past their own front doors?”
I baked cookies and gave prizes.
Yep, that’s right.
I have a SUPER EASY cookie recipe that consists of a
cheap-as-you-can-find cake mix, oil, eggs and whatever other cookie enhancement
you choose, for me it was chocolate chips.
I began bringing homemade cookies to the monthly
meetings, had everyone put their name in a hat (literally in a hat) and drew a
winner for a mall gift certificate at the meeting’s end.
Simple isn’t it?
The merchant gossip train did the rest for me.
By the time I left a few years later the monthly merchant
meetings overflowed into the next room.
Cookies and prizes saved my ass.
Were the stores doing any better? Who knows, many are still there 25 years later, but what
counts is they all felt better when they left the meetings because somebody
cared enough to bake them cookies and give them a chance to win a prize.
Our bodies become adults but if we’re lucky Our Child
remains.
I know this is getting long but the story gets much, much
better.
Fast forward 25 years.
I left that little Nebraska town 21 years ago and have
had many, many marketing and management jobs since.
Last month I returned home to attend my Aunt’s funeral and as
Dave & I were walking through the mall I spied one of the business owners
I’d worked with all those years ago, but hadn’t talked to since, in her shop.
I stopped to say hi.
After a brief “who is this old woman” look, her eyes
lit up like beacons, she broke into a magnificent smile and she came in for a
monster hug.
It was bliss.
The first words out of her mouth (after 25 years) was, “Your
cookies! I think of you every time I
take out the recipe!”
We chatted, reminisced and teared up a bit as we touched
on the topic of the passing of her husband and the grand lady who was the mall
manager when I was there.
25 years had not dimmed the magic, or the memory, of homemade cake mix
cookies.
As another Christmas rolls around let us not forget the
power of The Simple, whether it’s a baby in a manger, a brilliant star in the
heavens, a day shared with loved ones ….. or chocolate chip cookies.
(I just threw Puppies in the title cuz they’re right up
there with chocolate chip cookies and worthy of a blog post all their own!)
Merry Christmas!
Live Simply * Love Mighty
Bake Cookies!
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