Look, we've all been there. Yesterday was a pretty good or at lease so-so day for me, but for you it was a shit-show. By the end of the day, it's clear that you've been hit hard on some emotional, physical, or spiritual level. We all go home, but the knowledge is there: we're all supposed to come back tomorrow.
There hasn't been a company that I've worked at that hasn't said "take off days that you need to. Stay off when you're sick, take the day off if you need to regain mental composure". But on the other side of that token, there's a lacking number of sick-days available, and even if the bill collectors weren't constantly calling due to our sub-par wage, rack up more than a couple of conveniently placed sick days, and your 'be well rested, be healthy' workplace starts up the rumor mill about how many unpaid sick days one needs to accrue before they find themselves in the unemployment line.
As a member of a team, it's not just a nice thing to do, but part of your responsibility to do something nice to that person when they get there the next day. I tend to spend a couple bucks and buy a snack for the person, so when they come in it's all happy and nice and sitting there. But really, it just takes some consideration, some pro-activity, and some effort.
What do you get for your little bit of time, effort, and possibly a small bit of money? You create for that person a feeling of appreciation in a job that can sometimes be heartless and thankless. You give them a small bit of safety when that element of their life may have just been shaken. And above all, you remind that person that they're part of something bigger than a single day of hardship.
I mean, people sometimes wonder about why turnover in our job is so high. And the fact is, if all you get at the end of the day is a bite mark, a torn shirt, a handful of people gossiping about your capacity as a worker, and barely enough money to afford a place to live in and food to eat, then hell yeah, people are going to drop like flies. I mean, we can all tell ourselves that we're doing it for our guys and that it's only shoddy workers that leave, but people need to have SOMETHING that they look forward to when they get to work the next day. And if every day is just another period of time shredding our patience and sanity against the grater of hardship, it's not the shoddy workers that are going to leave. It's every worker, eventually.
So if you want your team to be strong, and have people that stay in it for more than a couple of weeks, then you need to BUILD that team.
And while it's absolutely essential for people to show support for one another after a rough day, it's equally essential for your team to show support for good days. I mean, most classrooms I've seen celebrate birthdays. But I've seen how many people go from dating to engaged without so much as a couple of congratulations. C'mon folks, you need to show that love. At least have the students make a nice card or something: We're talking about someone that's putting themselves into their work every day, and we can't even celebrate peoples' life milestones?
Every time you make that effort into your team, that team gets stronger. If you want a group of people whom you can trust in a crisis, then you need to show that group of people that they matter to you. It may just happen that they'll show that love right back.
And c'mon guys. It was just BeetleMania. Didn't you read the News2You?
All you need is love.
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