The Contented Cow Blog

Building Workplaces That Work

As I am already blessed beyond anything I deserve, with a wonderful wife and family, good health, dear friends, work that I love,  all the material things I need, and most of the material things I want, I find that my list of Christmas wishes digs, in some cases, deeply into the realm of the trivial, and in other cases, the seemingly unattainable. I, like many others, wish for peace in the world, the elimination of poverty, and that my Jacksonville Jaguars would have a winning season. But if I could sit down and make a list of wishes this Christmas, it might look like this:

I wish that people would:

• forever ban the use of the following phrases from their language:

1. the fact of the matter is
2. to a person
3. I’m reaching out to you
4. “I was like,” when they mean “I said”
5. “No problem,” when they mean “You’re welcome.”
6. At the end of the day
7. Does that make sense?

• stop referring to the “Queen of England”. She’s the “Queen of the United Kingdom”, or the “Queen of Britain”, which probably sounds better and is easier to comply with. What about Wales, Northern Ireland, and Scotland? We don’t say Barack Obama is the president of Hawaii, do we? I told you this was trivial.
• use their turn signals.
• speak more quietly on their mobile phones in public.
• learn when to use “Reply All” on emails, which is almost never.
• know what they want when they’re in front of me at Starbucks.

I wish the graphics operators at my local TV station would learn to spell, and to proofread what they put on the screen.

…that the socks I put into the laundry in pairs would come out as such.

…that my stapler had a gauge on it so that my first indication of its being empty would be something other than clamping down with a staple-less stapler.

…that Microsoft Windows was better than it is. Please don’t tell me to switch to a Mac to solve the problem. I know, I know…

…that I could figure out how using Twitter would help my business.

…that I could make better naan bread.

…that fast food restaurants were.

…that people were less uptight about the phrase “Merry Christmas”.

…that I could consistently remember where I put my sunglasses.

…that there weren’t so many things in my life that rely on batteries.

And I wish that our elected representatives would do a better job of representing us, and would behave with greater civility toward each other and people who disagree with them. I told you some of these were probably unattainable.

That’s really about it. Like I said, I’m lucky…very lucky. But as long as we’re wishing, those are my wishes.

And finally, I wish that everyone reading this has a Merry Christmas, if you celebrate Christmas, and that everyone has a blessed and prosperous 2010. That’s something we can all celebrate.

Richard Hadden (twitter at http://twitter.com/rehadden) is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by creating a great place to work. He and Bill are the authors of the new book Contented Cows MOOve Faster, as well as the acclaimed business classic Contented Cows Give Better Milk. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

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