Sunday, November 2, 2008

November 2, 2008 - Happy days

Hey there, hi there and hello there to you all. A belated happy birthday to Ms. Sarah Jencks, a big happy anniversary to dad and Barb and a wondermous celebration of happiness to my sister as she gets one year closer to a reduction in her car insurance on Thursday ... 22, holy schnikes you're getting old!




Crazy busy work week = wonderfulness! I tell you what, I love giving a good ol' presentation and hanging out in meetings. Maybe I'm a little weird, but I really feel good after a productive gathering of the minds and I had many of them this past week. Trying to join forces with IT on some initiatives was very exhilarating this past week especially with the emphasis with Online Services. We also held a customer experience "brown paper fair" for our department. To give a little background, in the past we would put huge pieces of brown paper in the hallways and have the production specialist come out and give us suggestions for process improvements throughout the department. Well my team started thinking outside of the box and thought it'd be a good idea to bring the "brown paper fair" to the customer. So, we created sandwich boards with all of the information and wore them around to visit all of the teams throughout the day. I have to say I looked pretty schnazzy in a blue sandwich board and it worked like a charm. We may have had some ... ok, a lot ... of people giving us crazy looks, but it was very effective and caught the eye of our management! The most exciting time at work was had not at work, but rather out in the boon docks for our 2008 Client Services Leadership Trek. All of the leadership for our department from supervisors up to our VP attended the event where we split up into teams and competed in various challenges throughout the day. We built a shelter from the storm, had relay races, told stories and climbed an inflatable rock wall which was not too stable:) We had a great time and learned about the ABCs of leadership (Antecedent - Behavior - Consequence). It is pretty awesome to be a part of a company that can take all of the leadership in a department for an entire day and devote it to leadership development.

We were even to end the work week on a positive note with Halloween where we could dress up. Pictured above you will see a wonderful Top Gun representation from Patrick and myself representing Goose and Maverick respectively. About 7 of us from the Aflac SIFE group dressed up and left work early to deliver treats to the children and adults at Easter Seals. That is such a great organization and the kids were so grateful, it was a blast! I was able to help out Easter Seals yet again today as I manned the booth to sell Precious Moments down at the Trade Center for Christmas in the South where over 200 vendors sold trinkets and candy ... mmmm!

Did a little Toastmasters action this week which followed my first ever Miss Georgia Pageant Board of Trustees meeting. There are some great people on the board and it is for a great cause, I just hope the future meetings are a little bit more full of substance! We do have our end-of-season soccer tourney beginning tomorrow night so keep your fingers crossed for an En Fuego victory!

This past weekend was probably one of the most fun and exciting that I've had in a good bit. Of course we had to go out on the town to show off our Top Gun outfits which didn't even compare to some of the effort of the golden Buddha, the Peeps Easter candy and the TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for those non-1990's-cartoon-watching-fans:). Then on Saturday I was able to attend my first Steeplechase up at Callaway Gardens. It was basically a minor league Kentucky Derby with various feathered hats, horse/dog races and good times had by all in the terrace boxes and the infield. Next year I will most definitely be entering the fancy hat contest! It was a bit haiwty taiwty (not quite sure how to spell that one) up in the boxes, but it was a great show nonetheless.

It was obviously a full week of wonderfulness and this week will hopefully only get better! I wish all of the people celebrating something the best of days and especially you there Steph ... have good times, wish I was there but I get to see you in a couple weeks anyways;)





My morsel comes from a card Jenny sent me, "Some days are hopscotch kind of days, some days are waiting to get nailed at dodge ball kind of days ... I hope today is the hopscotch kind of day." Hope you have wonderful days ahead for you this week and go get 'em tiger.

Alwayz,
Nate

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