Category Archives: Kindness

The Art of the Thank You

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Wow. We’re almost in the middle of January. Have you thanked everyone for the holiday cheer upon-which they bestowed you?

It’s important to say thank you to people – or a community – who (or that) have done you right. Saying “thanks” is the good behaviour that builds the unshakeable blocks of a positive and productive community. Well, it’s not just good behaviour; it’s the right thing to do. And, whether you’re thanking someone for a gift, their hospitality, a delicious meal, or a kiss on New Year’s Eve, well-honed thanking-skills will make you a well-liked, respected and receiver-of-many-cool-free-things within your community.

All you need to do is follow this successful strategy for saying thanks.

First, here are three keys to a successful thank you:

1. Be Genuine. Mean what you say. Take some time to celebrate the gesture (gift, food, information interview, heirloom) by sharing with the giver of time/ideas/food/things how said gesture made you feel. Expressions like “Thanks very much for taking the time to cook such a delicious and nutritious meal, Mom. I know that you’re really busy and I appreciate the effort that you put into dinner. The leftovers will be great!”

2. Be Timely. Always ensure that your thank-you – be it written or verbal – happens soon after the gesture takes place. This could mean right after a big holiday meal or opening a gift. For written thank yous, such as emails or cards, try to get them in the mail or into the Internets within a day or so of the gesture taking place.

3. Be Specific. People will feel (and remember) the power of your thank-you when you focus on exactly what made/makes you so appreciative about the gesture. You might want to say, “Mom, I really appreciated the peas during dinner. They reminded me of growing up and making smiley-faces on my plate when I was 10 years old. I know peas aren’t really anyone else’s favourite thing, so thanks for doing that.”

In terms of the mediums of your thanking prowess, I always recommend a triple-bottom-line or “triple-threat” approach. [Editor's note: thank-yous should never be threatening]. First, say thank you in person, right away. Second, send a short and sweet email – follow the formula above )sometimes I list my “three favourite things” about the meal/visit/interview/party). Third, if the gesture is extra special, such as a year of yoga or, in the professional world, an information interview, then send along a handwritten thank you card. After all, everybody loves getting mail and your card will be on display as a constant reminder of how nice/awesome/thankful you are.

So there it is. The recipe for thanking people in your community.

Thank you for your time.

–

Masthead photo courtesy of artnoose

It’s kind of a funny story…

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Last night was a weird and wonderful one. So, I arrive home – chatting on the phone – to find my lovely wife, Michelle Burtnyk-Horn, in the living room working away on her computer. I hang up, give her a kiss, and she says, “I got bread on the way home.” (We’re super-romantic, by the way). And I reply, “Oh, that’s funny, because I got bread yesterday.” Michelle chuckles and says, “Where is it?” And I said, “In the freezer.” And then all I hear is laughter.

Here’s why:

Coincidence, connection or conspiracy? You decide!

Oh, it got funnier. We also bought delicious Apple Fig Bars, too – they’re a delectable impulse purchase at the counter of Kea Foods on Main Street.

Long story short, we each bought the same thing at totally different times without talking to each other about it.

HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?

The Facts:

FACT: I bought Uprisings sourdough light rye bread and a package of apple fig bars from Kea Foods at 6:17pm on January 3, 2012.

FACT: I purchased the apple fig bars at the checkout counter because I know that Michelle likes them a lot.

FACT: I originally stopped at Kea Foods for mushrooms and I knew we also needed bread (for the weekend, though, not that night).

FACT: Michelle bought Uprisings sourdough light rye bread and a package of apple fig bars from Kea Foods at 5:58pm on January 4, 2012.

FACT: Michelle bought apple fig bars at the checkout counter because they are delicious. And she was hungry and wanted to eat one on the way home.

FACT: She ate more than one.

FACT: Michelle had no idea that I bought these items the day before. The bread went in the freezer. The apple fig bars went in the cheese-drawer. And I cooked dinner, so I was the only one in the fridge on the evening of Tuesday, January 3, 2012.

FACT: Michelle and I rarely shop at KEA Foods.

Testimonials:

 

“We just laughed and laughed and laughed. And then we hugged and jumped around a bit, you know, because we’re huge nerds. I mean, in our lives, this is pretty exciting stuff! It’s weird how it all came together, though, because neither of us said anything about it to the other – not an ‘I’m gonna get bread’ or anything. Like I said, weird. I guess it’s just out loving superconnection!”

- John Horn

“Despite the fact that neither of us routinely shop at KEA foods or purchase those items, it – oddly enough – didn’t seem that odd that we had purchased the exact same items. I mean, as John said, we do have a super awesome love superconnection! That being said, this occurance definitely warranted jumping, laughing, and examination on a world-renowned blog*”

- Michelle Burtnyk-Horn

Theories:

  • The Great Minds, Deep Love Theory:
    • Everything is connected. We all consist of protons and electrons and stuff.
    • Michelle and I have an uncanny mental connection.
    • Our minds, like our connected hearts and souls, work as one.
    • Each of our brains simultaneously informs the other of our intentions, thus, periodically, creating “double-up” anomolies wherein each person carries out the same thought independently of the other person.
  • The Boring Routine Theory:
    • We do the same thing so friggin’ often that our stale routine (unlike the delicious sourdough light rye) has trapped us in an inescapable rut.
    • Saying we need to “shake things up” is an understatement.
  • The “Big Sourdough” Conspiracy Theory:
    • It’s simple. The Sourdough Industrialists are controlling our minds with their delicious, delicious product. They have a plan. And it involves enslaving the world.
    • Bakers are merely the minions of this unstoppable doughy juggernaut of a world domination scheme.
  • The Total Coincidence Theory:
    • The universe is random and cruel hilarious and bestows wonderful surprises of bread and figs upon its inhabitants!
  • The Hidden Meaning Theory:
    • There’s something more to this than we know…like Michelle and I are going to have twins…or two sets of twins.

So, what’s your theory?

Whatever the case, this is just another story that shows how important it is for people to appreciate the little things in life. After all, such a silly moment of joy was a marvelous muse for the evening!

–

*This claim refers, of course, to The Daily Gumboot. “World-renowned” claim according to John Horn, Kurt Heinrich, and their parents

 

The Gift of Time

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No, this isn’t a post about one of the greatest movies of 2011, In Time starring Justin Timberlake, which totally should’ve been called Justin Time starring Justin Timberlake, by the way. This post is about holiday giving.

The other day, my Superphone shared with me this video from The Project For Awesome 2011′s “How to Give Back” campaign on the YouTube:

I didn’t really get the “breasts on the homepage” comment because I’m not a regular follower of this initiative, but I very much enjoyed and appreciated the meaningful message of giving time instead of money and/or things as we give back during the holiday season.

Sure, “psychologists” and “professors” and “experts” will tell you that spending money the right way can make you happier, at least that’s an argument recently posed by the The Age’s Ross Gittins. Further, over the last month I’ve been engaged by no fewer than 20 of my Facebook friends as they crowdsource their projected holiday donations with questions like “Which charity should get my donation this Christmas?” or “What organization do you give to during the holidays?”

We know that holiday consumption and the spending that feeds it is addictive. While happiness is also addictive, I’ll argue that spending as giving is not the most efficient, rewarding or meaningful way to give back in our neighbourhoods, cities and regions. Giving time to your community makes a positive difference in these much more impactful ways:

1. Experiential Learning – you see the results of your work as it unfolds before you and supports/inspires the people who you’re helping.

2. Fiscal Responsibility – we spend more financial capital than we have while spending very little of our collective and individual social capital; giving time instead of cash addresses both of these challenges.

3. Volunteering is addictive – the biggest problem with holiday giving (whether it’s money or time) is that it only happens during the holidays; unfortunately, poverty, addiction, abuse, displacement, and many other anti-community problems happen year-round. Yes, giving time is, in many ways, harder than cutting a check; however, once you spend time on the front lines of community problem-solving and difference-making it’s much harder to stop doing it.

So there it is. Thank you for your time (during this holiday season and beyond).

–

Masthead photo courtesy of Lester Public Library

99 Ways to Leverage our Humanity – Part 4

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[Editor's note: And so concludeth the experiment. This has been an incredibly inspiring community-driven team effort - thanks to everyone who has contributed to this list! The world's Occupy Movements might be dwindling, resting or might just be unreported. Many elements of the Occupy Movement have issued demands. Personally, I see many problems with demands, as they imply binary-negotiating and/or unchangeable beliefs. Personally, I see more value and possibility in ideas and collaborative brainstorming - though this is a much harder process for certain. Some other folks share a love for collaboration and they have kindly offered their ideas in world-changing list-form. So, without further ado, here is the conclusion of this superawesome series that is meant to get our community thinking about how our brilliant, passionate, inspiring, adaptive, funny, delicious, healthy, and innovative humanity can make the world a better place. Thanks for the memories, everyone!].

How can we leverage our humanity to solve the world’s problems?

Here are ideas 1-25. And here are ideas 26-50. And here are ideas 51-75. And here are ideas 76-99:

  1. Repair things. Or at the very least bring things that need fixing to the people who know how to fix ‘em.
  2. Number 13 is solid, yes. Just don’t forget to hug your friends, too.
  3. Share in sport with people. Playing basketball, volleyball, soccer, football, rugby, and even non-sports like baseball represent a shared experience that transcends language and culture. And it keeps us healthy, too!
  4. Have an opinion about triple-bottom-line sustainability principles. Discuss these opinions at dinner parties.
  5. Speaking of discussions/arguments, don’t confuse disagreement with dislike or disrespect. Embrace the power of healthy debate – echo chambers aren’t incredibly innovative.
  6. Trust people.
  7. If your/our current political system is so uninspiring that you cannot bring yourself to participate in it, well, fair enough. Here’s the thing, though. Apathy makes winners of the corrupt. So, if you don’t like the system of which you’re a part find the other people that share your opinion/values/ideas and work together to change it.
  8. Speaking of Number 82, please don’t confuse this with anarchy. In fact, we can leverage our humanity by ensuring that whenever we meet any self-proclaimed anarchist who is not named Tyler Durden that we impose structure on their life in some way. This is both hilarious and meaningful, as it could be the thing that stops anarchists from breaking stuff with no positive outcome in mind.
  9. Explore spirituality that is different from the stuff on which you were raised.
  10. Work hard and be nice to people
  11. Be a doer, not a sayer. Too many people say things but never follow through
  12. Push your boundaries by reading something you wouldn’t otherwise pick up – if you need to, join a good book club to empower a thirst for different types of knowledge
  13. Help other people – I firmly believe the key to happiness for the vast majority of people is to spend a sizable (though not overwhelming) chunk of your life making others happy.
  14. Live near your work; walk wherever you can; cycle or bus the rest of the time
  15. Feel comfortable with modesty – feel convinced that big/flashy/expensive isn’t often necessary/better/preferable
  16. Trust in the universal strength of your own mind and body.
  17. Try not to life too much in the past, too much in the present, or too much in the future – all are important and should try to be balanced out
  18. While there are a lot of problems in the world, there are a lot of people who are doing a lot to solve them. Appreciate what people are currently doing and stay positive while constantly striving to make things better
  19. Don’t underestimate the impact your actions – however small they may be – can have
  20. Spend time with animals.They’re good for the soul.
  21. As a conversation starter, ask people what they’d most like to occupy. The answers will undoubtedly be hilarious and thought provoking.
  22. Volunteer for something meaningful all year long, not just during the holidays.
  23. Downsize your life. People can do more with less. Even better, we can do less with less.
  24. Read this series, as it’s a pretty great map for how to make the world a better place.

So there it is. Now get out there and occupy some of these ideas!

Charity and Community – Hand Outs and Cheapskates

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I was just approached in the office to buy a raffle ticket for $10, three for $25.  The prize was a trinket that I’d never keep.  The reason for the raffle: a guy who works here was just diagnosed with prostate cancer and was headed into surgery today.  One of his friends/co-workers was collecting money for his family, just a bit extra to cover take-out and gas back and forth to the hospital.  It probably won’t amount to much, but it’ll help.  I’m sure it’ll be really, really appreciated too.

It’s Movember this month and I didn’t carve a moustache from my beard.  I probably should have and now feel a stab of guilt for not raising money for finding a cure.  Prostate cancer.  Life’s great kick in the balls. I’m really lucky; I haven’t been forced to think about cancer very much.  All my friends who have had cancer have survived and are still surviving.  Invincibility is still attached to my aging youth.  But cancer, or whatever fate, is out there and none of us know if or when we’ll have to face our battle.  Will your community be there for you when it happens?  Is giving now just flimsy good-karma insurance?

When I consider the raffle, my mind moves to the big campaigns – the posters and runs, pink ribbons and testimonies from survivors.  All this to encourage society to search for a cure.  I’ll admit to not giving as much money as I should.  Logically, I know how important it is.  Emotionally, I feel for the millions of people this affects.  But when I see the campaign by the Canadian Cancer Society I don’t feel connected.  I don’t know the people.

Ah, and there it is.

There’s the problem.

My problem is the problem so many face.  We don’t know people in Mogadishu who are struggling with drought and joblessness.  I don’t know anyone in the favelas of Sao Paulo either who don’t have clean running water.  There are so many people in need, so many folks on the street in urban Canada, struggling communities in our north…the list is overwhelming.  Who gets my charity dollars and how much should I give?

I’ve chosen to buy the raffle ticket this time.  I felt moved to do so.  It was direct.  It was for a guy who works with us.  If I didn’t give, I don’t think I’d be doing justice to my community.  It was real.

But what of the others?  Where do I go for these answers?  I feel like I’m there, ready to give.  Now what?

–

Awesome masthead photo by derekp

Trusting Community

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Last Thursday I was playing in my weekly Tier 2 Men’s Basketball League game. We won, but that’s not what this story is about.

This story is about trust.

As I sat on the bench during the game (I get tired quite easily when games begin at 10pm), a young man came over and said the following:

Young Man: “Forgive my interruption, sir, but I was wondering if I could trouble you with something.”

John: “Sure thing, what is it?”

YM: “My friend and I would like to shoot around on the next court over. Could we please borrow your basketball? We will just be nextdoor.”

John: “Yes, certainly.” [Hands over the ball]. “Wait a sec. I’m going to need some collateral from you. Give me your hat.”

YM (somewhat taken aback): “Okay, sure.” [Hands over hat].

The two guys took my ball and bounced it over to the court nextdoor. As they left, I was overwhelmed with disappointment in myself. Where was the trust in my community? For years, I have prided myself on being a person who shares and gives more than he probably should based on the principle that people are inherently good and that anyone who receives what I give (secrets, ideas, money, food, drink, trust) would never use it for evil. The interaction above was not reflective of such a philosophy.

While sitting on the bench with my teammates, I reflected on what just happened. And – as I’m known to do – I told a story as part of my reflection. In the above photo from Kigali, Rwanda in 2007, my friend Edouard is wearing headphones (attached to my iPod). And it was the story of my iPod that I told last Thursday night. As with the basketball – my possession – I was so nervous about leaving my iPod with a kid who was sitting on the bench while my team played that I implored some of my teammates and expat friends sitting in the stands to “watch him to make sure that he doesn’t go anywhere.” This was such a fail. No one anywhere near the court would’ve let someone steal something from me. More importantly, no one would’ve thought of taking something from me.

As with the guys who borrowed my basketball, I quickly learned that stealing something from a member of the community just isn’t done. Yes, I learned a lesson about our North American perceptions of possession, ownership and trust during my 2007 adventures in East Africa. And, yes, I need to remember its application going forward.

Because, clearly, I need to work on trusting my community.

Masthead photo courtesy of Acidpix, Flickr.

Love, Equality and a Small Island

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There’s a little place right down the bottom of Australia called Tasmania. It’s the tiny island that everyone always forgets about when they draw a map of Australia, and it’s the state that Australians love to publicly ridicule for being a little bit backwards when it comes to, well, everything.

But this week, Tasmania surprised us all when it became the first Australian state to have parliament formally pass a motion in support of same-sex marriage. Tasmanian Greens Senator Nick McKim summed up the motion by eloquently stating “we should value difference and diversity, and devalue discrimination”. Not a bad motto to live by.

There’s absolutely no legislative force behind the motion, primarily because marriage is legislated by the federal government in Australia, but it is arguably a very important gesture. To put the motion into context, homosexuality in Tasmania was only decriminalised in 1997. That’s right, 1997.

The same-sex marriage debate has saturated the Australian media and political debate for most of the year, and there has been an outpouring of commentary on the issue encompassing everything from the ridiculously detailed to just plain ridiculous.

The debate has illustrated that despite a considerable amount of Australian law mandating that there should be no discrimination against sexual or gender minorities, there is still considerable political reluctance to afford same-sex couples the same symbolic rights as heterosexual couples.

Recent polls have shown that up to 68 per cent of Australians are in favour of formalising same-sex unions, which is a pretty good indicator that the politicians are (shock-horror) out of step with the will of the Australian community.

I’d say that most of the 68 per cent of Australians that support marriage equality understand that the debate is not about religion or the institution of marriage, it’s actually about community and our democratic choices.

In a democratic secular society, if we are all going to participate equally in the community, then we all need to be able to exercise the same choices. And the choice to get married to someone that you love regardless of gender seems like a pretty damn important choice to me.

Hacking for Humanity: Random Hacks of Kindness

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What are the first words that jump into your mind when you think of a collaboration between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, NASA and the World Bank?

If you’re like me, the first few words that entered your mind aren’t publishable on such a mild-mannered blog, and the subsequent words mostly started with evil.

But a few weeks ago, I was forced to re-evaluate my position when I was invited to Random Hacks of Kindness Melbourne.

According to the slick press release I received, Random Hacks of Kindness is a global community of innovation focused on developing practical open source solutions to disaster risk management and climate change adaptation challenges. The initiative began as a collaboration between all the organizations listed above, aimed at solving humanitarian issues through technology (and no-doubt with a secondary aim of looking less evil).

As part of hacking competition events across the world, coders from various organizations, industries and backgrounds work directly with subject matter experts from the emergency management sector to find solutions to ‘problem areas’ in disaster management technology.

When I did a bit of research into Random Hacks of Kindness I quickly realized that some of the solutions that have come from past hack-a-thon events have been good. Seriously good.

Last year, Random Hacks of Kindness was responsible for the refinement of the Google PersonFinder app that ended up being used extensively in both the Japan and New Zealand earthquakes, and was also behind the development of FoodMovr – a geo-location app that connects businesses that have excess food with organizations that help feed the needy.

As part of the Random Hacks of Kindness Melbourne event that I was lucky enough to attend, coders worked on everything from an app that allows users to create customized disaster plans, through to the development a unified platform for aggregating public alerts from all emergency services in Australia.

This event not only gave the Melbourne developer community a chance to give back and work on rewarding projects, it also provided much-needed innovation for the Australian disaster management sector, which is notoriously behind the eight ball when it comes to technological innovation.

In a year when stories of hackers stealing credit card numbers and crashing websites are abundant, it was pretty amazing to see some of Melbourne’s best IT minds working together on projects that directly benefit the community in some incredible ways.

And it made me hate Google a little bit less. Just a little bit though.

Got Lost in the Andes, but Found Community

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[Editor's Note: this article is from a Daily Gumboot spinoff blog called "Steph Bowen: Girl on the Run" - as you can imagine, it's from one of our favourite guest bloggers, Stephanie Bowen. The words below were originally published on March 26, 2011, but they are truly timeless. Thank you for the story of self-finding, misadventure, balls-out-adventure, and community, Ms. Bowen. Safe travels home.]

“When one is lost it is not the number of days that matter, but the absolute uncertainty that claims every moment.”
-Wade Davis, The Serpent and the Rainbow

Roughly two weeks ago I arrived in Bariloche, a mountain town at the northernmost tip of Patagonia. Bariloche is at once eerily familiar and totally foreign: it incorporates German architecture, Argentine food (and the Argentine party ethic) and Vancouver Island-esque scenery. It’s beautiful, but only a shadow of what the surrounding wilderness has to offer.

After a mellow tester-hike, my newfound partner in crime (a sunny Californian girl with a similar appetite for the extreme) and I decided it was do-or-die: time to launch ourselves into a three-day mountain trek and hope for the best. We loaded our packs with -15 sleeping bags, dried food and canteens, consulted our map, and hopped a bus to the trailhead.

Our first day, we had been told, would consist of a simple 5 hour trek to a refugio, a small mountain cabin heated by wood stove, with bunks for rent for roughly $12 CAN a night. It was explained that the last quarter of the hike was challenging (a 900m climb in 2 km), but nothing we couldn’t handle.

Those canyon walls? We hiked up ‘em. No big deal. 

After 6 hours of bushwhacking, slogging through marshland, and scrambling up loose scree slopes, we’d yet to encounter anything resembling a refugio. We were, in fact, at 2000 meters in an unmarked valley in the Andes, with night coming on rapidly. By now our party had swollen to 5, to include two Dutch boys on the third hike of their lives, and a Swiss optometrist.

At the base of yet another shaky ascent to a narrow traverse between valleys, we decided to stop and take stock. Grudgingly, as the wind picked up and the landscape shifted under the receding sunlight, we admitted that we were lost.

To put this into context, Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi is 7500 square kilometres and boasts hundreds (maybe thousands) of trails of varying difficulty, not all of which end with a refugio. Or even exist on a map. Also, temperatures in this part of the Andes routinely drop well below freezing. Getting lost is not just a nuisance – it represents legitimate danger.

Lost in an unmarked valley with night coming on? Time for a photo shoot! 

After much discussion and a totally necessary group shot, we decided to double back along the valley and look for the original trail markers we’d been following. There was a good chance we wouldn’t make it to the refugio before dark, in which case we would break out our sleeping bags and spare food (and the two bottles of wine the Dutch boys had brought along), make a fire in a no-fire zone, and attempt to stay warm as the temperature went down. It was a mildly alarming prospect, but the only reasonable plan of action given the circumstances.

Luckily after a further 3 hours of haltingly retracing our steps, we arrived at our intended destination. On shaky legs, we settled in for dinner and conversation in the toasty mountain cabin.

I come from city stock: my first camping trip occurred at the tender age of 18 and true hiking only made its way into my life 5 years ago. I have little experience with the peculiar sensation of being at the mercy of the natural world, but I will say this: I kind of love it. The soaring adrenaline and immediacy of the problems you face bring out your most essential self. In those moments, nothing really exists except your surroundings, and your survival.

The next two days passed without (negative) incident, and describing the sights I saw is virtually impossible. We climbed towering peaks, contended with gale-force winds, made a (planned) detour to a mountain-top lake, drank wine from plastic bottles while huddling around a wood stove, forded streams using guide lines, woke up in the snow, and bonded in a way only the woods can inspire.

Sunrise at Tronador 

And at every crossroad, with every step, we witnessed the splendour of the Patagonia Andes.

On the second morning, while new friends and fellow hikers slept on, I woke to see the sun rising. Shimmying to the window in my mummy bag, I pressed my nose to the cold, cold glass and watched the sky move from blue, to pink, to brilliant red over the silhouette of a thousand peaks. It was so profoundly beautiful that I couldn’t speak, or reach for my camera, or even breathe. It was so beautiful it made me ache.

The last year of my life has been replete with change and all kinds of wonder. Moving to Vancouver was one of the best decisions I’ve made in a long time, and even from a distance the life and friendships I’ve built there inspire me on a daily basis.

But being in the quiet of the mountains, surrounded by the natural world, powered by sheer determination, has brought me back to myself in a way I couldn’t have anticipated.

I have lost, and found, myself in the Andes.

Etiquette Builds Community

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Given that my official Daily Gumboot title is Etiquette and Australian Safety Correspondent, I thought it was about time I wrote a post on etiquette to counter the many posts I have written about Australian safety, which let’s face it, is a fairly niche area.

So, I thought I’d share some thoughts on office manners, which far from disappearing in to their predicted obsolesce, are actually making a comeback in the business world.

1. Hold the Door Open

When I was working at the highly regarded Sauder School of Business, I was consistently mortified at how many doors were slammed in my face by Vancouver’s future business leaders. I definitely don’t expect to have doors held open for me based on my gender, but I do expect it to happen based on my status as a fellow human being. It’s pretty easy to do a quick head-check to see if there’s anyone behind you before you swing the door like it’s an iron gate in a hurricane.

If we’re getting pedantic about it, the person who reaches the door first should open it and usher the person behind them through, and only then should they walk through themselves and shut (not slam) the door behind them. This kind of precision etiquette is clearly not going to happen when you’re in the bathroom line at the hockey, but there’s no reason why it shouldn’t happen in your workplace.

2. Be Punctual to Meetings

Quick tip: five minutes before the start time of your meeting is not the right time to print a copy of the 400 page tender document for each of the 12 meeting attendees. And the printer won’t print any quicker if you stand there looking at your watch and forcibly pulling out each sheet of paper as soon as it dares to poke an edge on to the feed tray.

Quite simply, being on time to meetings shows respect. Respect for the person who organized the meeting, respect for the attendees and respect for yourself. I guarantee that if you are always on time people will naturally assume they can count on you. Your boss and co-workers will think of you as a dependable person. Who do you think the boss will assign to handle the next important project? Not someone who is always late.

3. Keep the Kitchen Clean

If you are lucky enough to have a shared kitchen/meals area in your workplace, respect it. Do your dishes, clean up your spills and fill up anything you empty. It’s simple stuff, but it is truly incredible how many people have homes that look like Ikea catalogues, but leave the office kitchen looking like a war zone.

And by the way, trash goes in the trash can. Take a look around the kitchen and I’m confident you’ll find one. It’s the large container with the trash bag in it.