The Price of Work

A few years ago, my husband and I decided to challenge ourselves to a $20-per-week limit. This $20 covers all that extra stuff: coffee, eating out, coffee, lattes and coffee. It was hard to keep up... and no, we don't stick to it 100% of the time, but we're real close, and we keep on getting closer. Oh, there were lots of attempts (on my part) to weasel out of the deal: this doesn't reeeeally need to cover lunch with friends, does it? It won't count on weekends together, ok? How about we just start next week because Stacey's birthday is coming up? Wait, we can't mean

In the end, creating the $20-a-week challenge was, ironically, a fun move... we have people over for dinner more often (grocery money), I bring my lunch everyday (healthier: priceless), I am making use of a once-unoccupied lunchroom (I am trying to start a movement we like to call, "Occupy Lunchroom"), and I plan ahead... a lot. It gets me looking at the facts (i.e. I hand over HOW MUCH to Starbucks every week?!?!).


The same attitude applies at work.

• Meetings: Bring Tim. You calculate the cost of your meetings by entering the number of people in the room and multiplying it by the average hourly salary. 
• Printing: depending on your printer/plan/amount of coloured ink/energy usage/etc. your print-out could be racking up a hefty monthly total. 

You have to make things real for people. It gives perspective.

Question of the day: how much does your leak cost?

Pick me! Pick me!

When I was 16, I wrote my first resume and applied for my first "real" job at Canadian Tire. I did something on my cover letter that my brother still makes fun of me to this day: I put the Canadian Tire logo on the top right-hand corner of my cover letter.

Why would I do that? I wanted to stand out. I mean, yes, it sounds tacky; but, what can I say? It's all about context baby: I was 16... it was an entry-level position... they got lots of applications... I knew if they hired me, I'd make them very happy. I just needed them to see me above the others and I knew I'd show up to perform.

Next month I'm preparing for a presentation where I want to separate myself from the rest and deliver an amazing experience. This time, though, I'm no longer 16, and no amount of logo-pasting is going to capture my audience. Nope, this time, I've got to be smarter... I've got to be more inventive... I've got to be fun...

... I've got to be 7 years old again.

Using inspiration from Kamishibai, a form of storytelling that originated in Japan, I'm going to tell my story through picture cards. And it's not going to be in a meeting room at the office, it's going to be in a quiet, local, Toronto cafe with the sights and smells of lattes.

So while it's been over a decade since I landed my 16-year-old-dream-job as a Canadian Tire cashier (and... ahem... quickly promoted to Customer Service rep AND Auto Service Cashier), and even though my brother still makes fun of me for pasting in that logo (who says time heals everything?), it was a successful lesson in the value of sticking out of a crowd and trying something new.

Question: When is the last time you stuck out from the crowd?