Play Date

Well, I'm happily on vacation for the next week and am looking forward to this time of relaxation and rejuvenation. It might sound extreme, but this past week was a pivotal week in my transition this fall from the plant in Bremen to Lafayette.

It just became clear to me that we are making progress.

One of the highlights of the week was publishing my first newsletter for the fabrication facility.

It is called Fab-ulous Times. My hope is that it will be a newsletter to share improvement and best practices. We don't do a very good job of spinning our successes. We focus way too much on the negatives. This newsletter is just one step in the direction of improved communication. In addition, we started to make the initial steps toward empowering our production associates. My hope is that strategic, incremental steps will lead to more actively engaged employees. These steps are coupled with more tangible successes including turning in over $150,000 of engineering change requests that appear to be on track to approval in entirety.

I bring up the newsletter, though, because for me this newsletter was an example of playing. It ended up being a spontaneous decision to write up the articles. It also allowed me to get back to something that I really enjoy doing. I have kind of tucked away my interest in journalism over the years but some of my best memories from school were as the yearbook editor under the direction and guidance of Mrs. Smith. The nice part about the newsletter is that my boss is 100% on board. (He thought the title was great, too.)

So as I join my loved ones in preparing for the celebration of Christmas, I am particularly mindful of playing. This advent season, I have spent much time reflecting on God-in-the-Bod, Jesus. In sending a baby, a child, it is almost like God is saying, forget about playing by the rules. Forget about worrying about tomorrow. Forget about jumping to conclusions. Forget about feeling utterly inadequate. Forget about what others think of you. Instead, it is like God is saying, my Son, Jesus, needs a play date.