Starting the internship and Embracing the Suck

I just wrote up the first salvo in the Battle of the Internship. I hope this one does better than the last one. I haven't sent it yet. I'm letting it sit for a spell after which I'll review it and send it along.

The Battle of the Internship is where I put to work the stuff I was supposed to learn in the college class I'm taking. I don't know if it will work. I tell myself I don't care but I'm lying and I know it. I'll go through the motions and honestly give it my best effort. That's because it's a learning experience and I want to learn this stuff. I want to use it too. That's what this is all about isn't it? It's about knowing I can change myself and believing that I can.

Can I accept that I can't change the way things are where I work if this fails? I hope so but I'm still going to try and make a difference.

This is whut I'm sending out.


Embracing the Suck...

But only as much as is absolutely necessary.

There's an internship as part of the leadership and management class I'm taking and The Boss has graciously allowed me to do that internship here. I have a simple goal, "Make us a better Team". 

There's nothing earth shattering about any of the exercises to I have planned. They are what the sages of all things Team and Leadership say are effective. I'm simply going to direct us through a series of steps that they taught us about in class and that I've gleaned from the assigned readings. My personal assignment is to do my best to ensure that it's neither intrusive nor just an exercise in going through the motions. It needs to be real or it's pointless.

Muffin top version of the Serenity Prayer

You all know the serenity prayer in one form or another:

    God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

    The courage to change the things I can,

    And wisdom to know the difference.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer  (There's some neat information here)

As far as I can tell, the first line translates directly to, "Embrace the Suck".

Sometimes The Suck is external, and a part of our daily lives that isn't going away. We work for the (PLACE WHERE I WORK) and certain things come down the pike which we have to simply embrace. At other times it's closer, like certain aspects of PITA policy. Fighting that suck is part of who we are and what we do. The continued effort towards obtaining the aptly named Purgatory network is one of the ways we meet our foe and is but one example of how we battle every day.

When The Suck is internal is where the next two lines can have more effect. Do we/I continue believing and behaving the same day after day or do we/I try and make a change? (Cliché about insanity intentionally omitted. I'll digest this stuff down to what's the most applicable to us in our place of mutual Suck.

We're in this boat together. The ride will continue. The boat will always leak and we'll keep bailing. That's the Suck we endure. Let's just make that little bit of extra effort that lets us get better at patching the holes we can, bailing more efficiently and seeing through the fog towards wherever we're going. 

The very least you'll get out of this is the personal sense of satisfaction from knowing you, and "we" because it's a team, tried.