Cindy

Droog

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October 13, 2008

My Unloved Work Projects? I’m Taking Them to Goodwill!

I love the Goodwill commercial where the woman holds up various clothing items from her closet and says, “Yeah, this fit. Two years ago.” A big fan of Goodwill myself, I make drop-offs about every three to four months. Kids’ toys in perfect condition, yet unloved. Clearance impulse buys that, once I got them home, I had to remind myself – yet again – why there is such a thing as a clearance rack.

I also buy from Goodwill. I have a vintage winter coat from there that is my favorite spring jacket. Not to mention my red boots. The only reason I can even imagine someone giving them up is that they got pregnant, and got bigger feet. Because they are dang cool.

Anyway, I made another trip to Goodwill this week, and then I wondered, why isn’t there a Goodwill, or even a “swap projects table” at work?

That customer database project that I’ve been assigned to for two years, that never seems to get anywhere? If I handed it off to Charlotte, she could give it a new life, just like I did to those red boots. I could feel good about giving it to someone who actually cares for it, and it would leave room in my “to-do” closet for something else.

Admit it. There are projects at your job that you think you would love to work on. You’re jealous – just a lil’ bit – that someone else gets to work on them.

It reminds me of my favorite scene in my favorite movie, Beautiful Girls. Uma Thurman and Timothy Hutton are ice fishing in the middle of the night, and he’s jealous of Uma’s boyfriend for getting to drink martinis, read the Sunday paper and hang out with her.

She reminds him that there is someone out there jealous of him for getting to do all those things with Annabeth Gish (his girlfriend).

Work is a lot like that. We have one team called “The Transformation Team,” that gets to see us through a whole bunch of changes over the next year. (I use the phrase “get to.” I realize they probably use the phrase, “have to.”) I can picture that title on my business card: Transformation Team Associate.

Cool.

But I get to work on our corporate blogging site. Motivate the bloggers. Expand our readership. And there are probably a bunch of people at my company who think that job’s pretty interesting. They don’t realize that 90 percent of the comments we currently get are spam, and that I spend an hour each day filtering through posts about inappropriate Asian body parts.

If we had a corporate Goodwill for projects, all of this could be solved.

When I clean out my closet each season, I typically get rid of eight to 10 items. I do the same for my husband and each kid. That adds up to about 40 items a year. It may not be much, but imagine being able to offload 40 of your least-loved projects onto people that would take them, add them to their wardrobes, and wear them another few years.

Personally, I would start with my blogging duties. But those weekly reports about search engine optimization? The perfect job for the person in love with Google and in love with linking strategy? This one’s for you!

Meanwhile, I’ll be busy transforming us – or at least telling other people to. See you at the swap table in two years! 

© 2008 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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