Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Will My Employee Go Postal?

I just read an interesting article in this month’s edition of Men’s Health magazine. The article talked about whether or not one of your employees might go postal.
Mark Safarik, a 23-year veteran of the FBI, offered the following tip for spotting that pre-postal employee:
“Look around his cubicle. If his walls are plastered with pictures of his family and him fishing, he’s probably not a risk. On the other hand, if the walls are blank, or push-pinned with complaints, or everything appears obsessively neat, he bears watching.”
I started to think about our employees. I started to check off, in my mind, who in the office has pictures on the walls. Only one person failed the test. A nice young girl we hired about nine months ago. Nine months. Nothing on her wall. Now I’m worried. Her office is also obsessively neat.
I must admit, I don’t have anything on my walls but the obsessively neat thing pretty much takes me out of contention.
Then I remembered. This young lady just hung something on her wall a few weeks ago.
A Chicago Cubs banner.
The ONLY thing hanging in her office right now is a Chicago Cubs banner.
That can’t be a good sign.
I hope her family doesn’t own any firearms.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

A Special Thanks

I just got back from a whirlwind tour of Washington, D.C. and New York City. I was fortunate to win the honor of Small Business Journalist of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration. It was certainly an honor.
I was able to visit the White House at a reception with President George Bush, attend a gayla in DC where I received my award and attend the closing of NASDAQ in New York’s Times Square. It was quite an experience.
I must say, however, that I felt un-deserving of the honor. I think the honor should really go to all the employees who currently work at SBM and for Judy Meador, who really worked diligently to get the paper up off the ground and continue the mission of helping business owners succeed.
The real winners are our current employees and our supporters, who go to work each day with one goal in mind: help businesses in the region succeed and encourage renewed commerce in our region.
To all of you—thank you from the bottom of my heart.
--Ron Ameln, SBM