This morning, as I’m writing this, I’m watching my eight-year-old cousin excitedly discover that Bo The Elf had taken advantage of the fact that we all went to bed early last night. The mischievous fellow hopped on his motorcycle and took a joy ride through the living room—dispersing my cousin’s green and tan army men in the tree, on the mantle, atop the doorway, on the ceiling fan.
I moved to Fort Wayne in 2011 to attend the University of Saint Francis, and I decided to stay in Fort Wayne post-graduation. All of my family lives in northwest Indiana. So that makes… seven and a half years of living three hours away from my family. And this year, I got a little extra homesick.
It’s bound to happen, right? It’s hard to be a transplant—one on hand, I’ve found a great community and friendships in Fort Wayne. I’ve grown personally and professionally in ways I couldn’t have had I gone back home. On the other, though, I’ve put about 200 miles between me and my biggest support system. And 2018 was hard in my personal life. It challenged me in ways I’d never been challenged before, which is, of course, a blessing and a curse—to grow, and to do it on your own.
So, the point in saying all of that, is that this morning, I get to spend quality time with my family in their every day lives. As opposed to the usual hullabaloo of holiday parties—me, frantically running from one house to another trying to fit seeing all of my family in a blur of 72 hours.
Okay, even further to the point—I’m having this experience right now, because, One Lucky Guitar has a flexible work schedule that allows me to work remotely.
Not to get all economic development-y on you all, but that is a little bit of my background, so I can’t help it. This kind of work flexibility is important to more and more people. It’s the understanding that employees are human, that we have lives that are complicated. (We ALL do, not just some of us!) And rather than pretend that it doesn’t exist and leave it at the door, OLG embraces our employees for their whole selves. And this kind of work flexibility will continue to be an important aspect of talent attraction and retention for northeast Indiana.
At OLG, we work with people we trust and respect. That speaks to our clients, and our coworkers.
That’s the magic ingredient here. That’s why remote work works. We all have a strong sense of accountability and integrity. We work hard to make a difference for our clients, our community, and each other.
This post might just be an emotional overload, from the whole Bo The Elf predicament, and from the fact that I’m approaching one year working at OLG. Regardless—we should all take a moment to appreciate what we have, exercise a little empathy for those who don’t have what we do, tell our coworkers we think they’re awesome and hug our family members (or, in the case of Abel, my cousin, give ’em a high-five).
Cheers, and happy holidays from Munster, Indiana, everyone.
This was originally posted by Jasmine on LinkedIn on December 20, 2018.
