When it comes to the way we work, Matchmaker Logistics has a “distributed team.” Articles like 5 Reasons Why Your Company Should be Distributed and Why Distributed Teams are Making Your Traditional Office Obsolete tout the benefits of this model where a company has both traditional brick-and-mortar offices (ours are in Wilmington, NC and Bessemer, AL) and employees who work virtually (ours work from Virginia and Indiana). Among other things, this set-up allows us to hire the best people no matter where they live and use the latest technology to communicate.
For this reason, even though I “chat” with our newest Carrier Sales Rep, Christa Neri, every day and I see her at least a few times a week (on a computer screen), we’ve only met in person twice. (You can meet her here!) Another benefit of our virtual offices is a rather relaxed dress code.
Introducing Christa Neri
Despite her winning attitude and ability to learn quickly, during her 90-Day probation period, Christa nearly got “fired” for a dress code “infraction,” wearing an Auburn sweatshirt to the office. (Read Mary’s humorous account of the story here.) Last week, Christa worked from the Alabama office alone while Mary, our hard-core Alabama fan, traveled. Therefore, Christa thought it was safe to wear her Auburn sweatshirt to work. But low and behold, we called a staff meeting via Oovoo, a service which allows up to 12 people to video conference. During the meeting, Christa strategically positioned her camera to hide most of her sweatshirt so Mary, who was conferencing in from her laptop, wouldn’t see it. But Mary wasn’t fooled. At the end of the meeting, Mary said: “Christa, show us the shirt you’re wearing today….” Virtual or not, our employees don’t get away with much.
In her defense, Christa explains that her history of allegiance has been rather confusing: “I was raised ‘Alabama’, but I married ‘Auburn’. Then, I got divorced and returned to ‘Alabama’, but married ‘Auburn’ again.” Christa’s not the only person in Alabama who feels this way. A poll revealed that there are twice as many Alabama fans (37 percent) as there are Auburn fans (18 percent), yet 20 percent of the people polled consider themselves fans of both schools!
Mary is having none of that. She offers this joke to back up her argument about the danger of “switching sides”.
An old man and his wife have gone to bed. After laying there a few minutes the old man farts and says,”Seven points.” His wife rolls over and says, “What in the world was that?” The old man replied, “It’s fart football!”
A few minutes later the wife lets one go and says, “Touchdown, tie score!” After about five minutes the old man farts again and says, “Touchdown, I’m ahead 14 to 7!”
Not to be outdone, the wife rips another one and says, “Touchdown, tie score!”
Five seconds go by and she lets out a squeaker and says, “Fieldgoal, I lead 17 to 14!” Now the pressure’s on and the old man hates to lose, so he strains real hard but to no avail. Realizing a defeat is totally unacceptable he gives it everything he has, but instead of farting he poops the bed. The wife looks and says, “What the heck was that?” The old man replied, “Half-time, switch sides!”
Stick to your own side this weekend,
~Bob
