While at my Mom’s house for Thanksgiving, I found myself completely lost after she decided to “rearrange” things in her kitchen. I scoured the shelves where I thought the sugar would be, and found TONS of powdered sugar. More powdered sugar than one person should own. I poked around a little more and finally gave up. Then a light bulb went off. I opened the spice cabinet and BINGO. SPRINKLES. This turned my wheat Chex into something exceptionally more exciting. Try it some time, you might not be able to stop smiling through your breakfast.

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Last night Richard and I chipped away at more Lego Lord of the Rings. I swear, this is one of the THE MOST glitchiest games I have ever played. The loading ring will just spin for ages in the bottom corners of our split screens, quests will glitch out and not continue on into the story, causing us to restart the game multiple times, items don’t respawn in their established places making it exceptionally difficult to complete story lines. Dear PS3, give us an update already, I am head over heels for the LOTR franchise, but this game is borderline unplayable at times. After struggling through one minor quest portion for almost 2 hours (which should have only taken about 30 to 45 minutes) we went and had dinner at Chipotle. I honestly can’t think of the last time I had Chipotle and it was pretty good. Our friend Aaron happened to show up at the same exact time and it was nice to have some dinner company and remissness about the crazies at my former work place.

After our meal we parted ways, sadly we had not killed nearly enough time before the midnight release of Batman: The Dark Knight Rises. We wandered over to The Nugget, which is a fancy pants supermarket. Considering how much time we had before 12 AM, we started at aisle 1 and proceeded to walk up and down almost every single aisle looking at all the food stuffs. Richard picked up some crazy delicious waffle cookie things, some chips, and a bag of cotton candy for me. With all of the aisles exhausted, we decided to kill the last hour and a half or so wandering Walmart. I honestly have never been to a midnight release for a movie (on DVD) and didn’t realize that people would actually be there to buy it. We were digging around in the CD bargain bin and suddenly a bunch of people materialized out of nowhere to buy the DVD. Sadly I could not find a Huey Lewis & The News CD, which I was convinced at least a greatest hits album would be in there, gave up and wandered over to where everyone was gathered. The employee had a huge display on a pallet that he was pushing into place and one guy asked if he could just grab it and go, to which he was swiftly shut down and reprimanded that he had to wait until the pallet was on the floor. Who knew they were such DVD nazis. Anyways, Richard grabbed his copy and we ducked out of there. I promptly crashed out maybe 10 minutes into the movie. Sad.

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December NaBloPoMo Topic:

Do you feel most comfortable being a leader, a follower, or a collaborator?

I feel that I am most comfortable in all of these roles in various capacities. I also feel that that answer is a bit of a cop-out, but hear me out a little. I have been a leader, follower, and a collaborator in various capacities of all of my jobs. When I started my first job, I started as a follower. I was new, inexperienced, nervous, but eager to learn and grow. I followed in the footsteps of over employees that I admired, taking direction from both my peers and superiors to improve my performance and the performance of the store I was working for. As I became more comfortable in my role, I started collaborating with leaders on various projects and ideas, which also meant taking on more responsibility and training other employees. Naturally that translated into various promotions until I ultimately landed the role of being the leader of the entire operation.

I feel that all three positions have unique rewards and challenges presented with them. In the role of the leader, you are able to make decisions that directly impact operations and employees. It gives you a position to teach, inspire, and coach others. I often find myself in the leader position, such as a school projects or a complex problem at work, because when it comes to situations like that, I am not the type to sit around and wait for everyone else to do something about it. I want to figure it out, getting done, and move onto the next challenge. Though in the position of leading, comes more responsibility, but sometimes in the end the rewards are greater.

In the role of follower, you are given the opportunity to take on someone else’s perspective with usually little or no repercussions for your actions (provided you follow instruction correctly). I often find that this role allows you to learn the in’s and out’s of the position you are in without having to worry about all the red tape. I also feel that people who start in this role before moving into a leader position (regardless of previous experience) often tend to be better leaders because they can identify more with the “followers”.

As a collaborator, this allows you the chance to both lead and follow. It can be the best of both worlds, provided the people you are working with feel the same way. I often find myself struggling with this the most because I tend to be a bit of a work-a-holic and control freak. But admitting you have a problem is the first step, right? As long as everyone feels valued and people are contributing equal amounts to the cause, being a collaborator can be a rewarding position.

I feel most comfortable evaluating what the situation calls for and assuming that role. By being flexible and dynamic, I feel that I am a greater asset to whatever goal I am working towards.