Celebrate the Grinch in YOU...

Lost and Found Near Ackerman Union - From the Ground Up

An ongoing primer for the floccinaucinihilipilification of Christmas season in the workplace:

If you are not accustomed to feeling sudden, inward bursts of cheer and generosity in your workplace due to the onslaught of Christmas-season cheer, you might be temporarily consigned to a minority feeling. In fact, here are some scenarios in the workplace around the Christmas season that you may find alarming, if not downright vexing:

#1 Insensitivity: Some of your clueless co-workers will send mass e-mails to your group or department with clarion calls of "Merry Christmas!" If you do not observe Christmas, you might catch yourself thinking, "How could she be so clueless?...Let me teach her a lesson...ah, let me write back, Happy Hannukah and the Best of Kwanzaa too!" But resist that urge and take the higher ground -- Maintain the Obama mindset in the face of these Sarah Palins. Remember, the Grinch did not react until he was pushed to the limit.

In his best-selling tome on personal development, First Things First, author Steven R. Covey writes that "Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

So be true to the Grinch in you and for that Christmas mass-mail, in your e-mail application, choose "Move to Trash."

#2 Shameless Consumerism: Holiday raffles, toy drives, and calls for donations will flood your senses in the workplace and mount an assault on your wallet. You might get e-mails from valued colleagues because "it is the season for giving." The raffles taunt you with the prospect of a 52-inch plasma TV while the pictures of needy, inner-city schools who are beneficiaries of the toy drives rankle your guilt. Why do we plant a Christmas tree in the corner and declare the need to line it with toys and trinkets without which we got along just fine throughout the year? And what message are we relaying to these kids through our toy drives? That if your parents cannot afford a gift that you really do not need, we'll step in and feed your want, just this once, every year. And what about the kids whose parents do not observe Christmas? Should we pander to their desires even though their parents do not subscribe to this "bizarre" custom of gift-giving designed around a fabricated birth day? Hmm.

Take the high road again, Grinchophiles! If you have been doing community service for the last 11 months of the year, steer clear of the assault on your hard-earned dough. Now is the time to indulge yourself with a pair of running shoes that will allow you to run away from your workplace delusion of Christmas cheer. And your reward? You will be smiling on New Year's Day because you did not exhaust that cheerfullness and your wallet by 12 pm, Dec. 25.


More to come...What's the deal with that song, "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas?"