My Wife Ate a Buick

(Have you read my yelp review on MG's in Sherman?)
 
My Wife Ate a Buick!

And I ate a Cadillac. I like how each sandwich is uniquely named - 57 Chevy has Heinz 57 sauce on it; T-Bird is a turkey burger ... The woman who took my order asked if we wanted 2 individual orders of fries or one we could split. This is the first time anyone had the foresight to ask this question. Brilliant because my wife, Cindy, never finishes her fries. Thank you, MG!

In addition to the appropriately appointed and named hood ornaments attached to the ceiling, MG's serves Texoma's best burgers, fresh cut fries, perfected onion rings, free refills and take-away drinks. My only regret is that we're moving to OKC, but we know where we will eat when in Sherman.

Smile Etiquette

Mark Horstman and Mike Auzenne are co-founders of Manager Tools LLC, a management consulting firm. I have been listening to their podcasts and reading their posts for more than a year. While I am in the nonprofit field, I find their wisdom invaluable as a manager. As a former pastor, who directly managed six, and oversaw several dozen paid and volunteer staff members, I admit that I wish I had had their wisdom a decade ago. Their most recent newsletter is simply entitled Smile Etiquette.  This newsletter is for those who prefer not to smile and those who work with people who choose not to smile. 

I recently landed the position of Annual Giving Coordinator at World Neighbors in Oklahoma City, and on our way to the interview, my wife, Cindy, reminded me several times to smile throughout the interview. Smiling, as one recruiter reminded me, lets people know that you have a personality behind all that intellect, knowledge, skill and expertise.  My interviewers may not remember, but I smiled throughout that interview more than I ever smiled for one. There are other reasons I landed the position, but smiling, I am sure, did not hurt.

Mike Rowe smiles all the time when performing dirty jobs.  On pig farms, in grease pits and everywhere else imaginable, he smiles. And come to think of the years I worked cleaning sooty air-conditioning filters in steel mill cranes and power-washing greasy scale pits at Babcock & Wilcox 30 years ago, there were many times when smiling made our jobs easier.

Take a minute to read Smile Etiquette, and after a month see how much the workplace changes for all those around you.

Raising Money and Reducing Costs

Reading A Personal Touch Lifts Donations and Helps Charities Save Money by Debra E. Blum and Holly Hall reminded me of the experiment we did at Berkeley Food and Housing Project.  Instead of mailing the Feeding Appeal to everyone on our database, we mailed it only to those who historically had given to that particular appeal, and found – not surprisingly – that our ROI increased significantly. Jim Young’s remark is spot on, “You raise funds by who you mail to, but you get more efficient at raising funds by who you don’t mail to.”  At BFHP, we tailored solicitations based on their donors’ giving history or simply emailed them the letter. The result was generating more than we did in the past.

Finding a House

World Neighbors offered me a position, which I accepted, and start on 11/1/11. Immediately after accepting the position, Cindy and I started looking for a house to rent. A  house that would accommodate all our belingings, dog and 2 cats, and be within a short driving distance of my office.

Amazing the difference one finds between descriptive words and staged photos one finds posted on craigslist and property sites and what one actually sees when looking for a house to rent. Into our second day, having eliminated the ones we know we don't want, we venture on to view new home sites for our move to Oklahoma City.

Finding a few places to stay overnight or a place to eat will be posted on my yelp page