Or How to Have Fun at Work
There are so many rules that as adults we must follow. Things we can get in real trouble for if we don’t pay our taxes, but then there are other rules such as eating a salad for lunch. Who came up with that rule anyway? This can be a stigma for women – all we eat are salads all the time. Well good for you if you really do, but it’s ok to eat the burger too. Now I get where the taxes come in, but who decided salad was the prime meal, a sundae for lunch wouldn’t hurt and it’s a whole lot more fun, too!
Anyway, things around the world are a bit rough right now so I thought I would write about a way to build in some fun. Especially since so many of us work long hours; we need to make sure to balance the seriousness of life and work with some fun. For instance, just the other day I got into work and immediately there was too much to do with not enough time. Story of our lives sometimes, right? Well, when things finally calmed down and I got to start wrapping up the crazy week my coworker, and I were a little burnt out. We decided to add a little fun into the end of our workday. The best part was there was a third person in the office that had no idea why there were peanut butter cups and paper airplanes flying across the room. (Sorry Ann!) But, it was a blast, and we laughed super hard about it, which made it easier to make it to the end of the day and week. Something so simple made a rough day a little easier to finish. We decided to break the so-called work rules and had a little fun. Something so simple can make such a difference.
A few years ago, I had a fantastic speaker come through my venue where he shared their philosophy with me. His name is Jason Kotecki, and he is all about breaking the rules of life and bringing some fun back into every day. Jason calls this fighting Adultitis. You can check out his work here http://escapeadulthood.com/blog/ for some inspiration and for further explanation of his idea about breaking the adult rules that don’t matter and bringing some fun back to life and work.
It can be simple things such as paper airplanes to things like trying your hand at stand-up comedy during a soundcheck or at least switching it up. Next time you are about to say check one, two, change it up, try some of your best movie lines. Or something like wearing a bright color one day instead of black, have breakfast food for dinner, dye your hair purple, and so much more. I personally like to break the unspoken rule of not having fun at work.
A while back my crew adopted a cartoon movie figurine. We named it Rex and decided to hide it within our staff-only areas for our co-workers to find. People got a kick out of looking for Rex and hiding it again. People would see it on top of work lights or buried under cables, and it always brought a smile to their face, and they would quickly hide it again. It was something so simple that the entire team had fun. What have you done to break the adult rules? How do you have fun or be silly once in a while?
On Jason’s website, he has a saying – “Don’t settle for the life you’ve been told to live. Create the one you were made for.” I feel this is a true motto that many SoundGirls can relate to; I know I do as I have worked hard to get where I am today. Women are told every day what they should be or how they should act, but as SoundGirls we are following our passions and creating the lives we want to live.