Recently, I've spent a few days away from the office. It's still considered work but one day, Monday, was a 1/2 day gathering at our Executive Director's house. It was basically a celebration of our department's accomplishments over the past year. It was fun and a very nice thing to do but I couldn't help but think, as I was driving out to her beautiful home in the country, about all of the stuff I had piled up on my desk.
Another, last Wednesday, I spent the entire day away from my desk, with everyone in our organization (I think around 120 people), being "enhanced." Again, the material covered in the day was interesting but not really relevant to my every day work so again, my thoughts kept wandering back to the office...
Friday afternoon, I attended an event I'd worked on. Sunday, we worked all day, in Gatineau. Preparing for these events was what had distracted me last week.
Today was different!
Today, I had an opportunity to attend a conference for admin support types. It was a one-day thing but could have easily been stretched to two. The nice thing about this particular day was how good I feel right now.
The speaker for the day was a really nifty lady named Colleen Clarke. The big focus of the day was on communication in the workplace. We discussed the use of language in our every day work and how it can influence the outcome of a given situation. Talk about powerful.
Often times, days like this are full of stuff that you already knew and someone is just re-wording it for you. This felt like more than that. She had working in groups on different exercises and scenerios. Not only did this help to make the material stick, it gave us all an opportunity to meet folks from all across campus.
Of course, right now, my head is swimming a bit. It was a lot of information to take in and many new faces to try and remember. I'm also still a little tired from Sunday. I'm really glad that I had an opportunity to participate in this day though. I didn't think about what I'd left behind at all. I was able to concentrate on these sessions. I think I learned a lot today. Whether or not I'll be able to implement what I've learned is another thing but it was a really great experience whatever happens!
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