When we owned our camping and backpacking store, Venture Out, here in Sylva, NC we would hire students from Western Carolina University. We had some great employees (Hi Monica Perry!), kids who matured into the awesome adults we knew they would become.
We were lucky by design for the most part with who we hired. Employers have to be so careful with what we are allowed to ask and not allowed to ask of prospective employees. We used a boilerplate application form but on the back of the form we asked one simple question...
What is the title of the last book you read and ...
why did you read it?
Truthfully? It didn't matter what was on the other side of the application...we didn't really care where they'd lived or worked before. We really didn't care at all about their references. We were looking for people who were curious. We knew they would make the best conversationalists in the store, we knew they would have what it took to really learn about the products we sold and the people we sold them to.
We always told them to not judge the people who came to the store by how they presented themselves in that moment. People are complex and often fascinating creatures. I remember one time a very old lady came through the door and one of our young male employees started to get sort of a bored judgemental look on his face and I said to him, "you know, that lady is in her 80s and just completed hiking the Appalachian Trail by herself. She is the author of a dozen books and was radically involved in the peace movement in the 60s, go talk to her and I promise you that you'll never regret it". He did and became her favorite employee every time she came in the store. I never saw him resist walking up to someone after that.
If our employees learned nothing else from working with us, I hope they learned to really get to know someone before they decided they liked or disliked someone.
I've always known about Etta James but didn't really know her music. Recently, Kim Anthony - the owner of Lulu's Cafe here in Sylva, NC, recently sold the restaurant and posted a collection of cds on facebook for sale.
I've been listening to a lot of music that I hadn't been exposed to before...among the artists is Etta James. So, I looked for her on YouTube and found this video which captures the subject matter today. Not only is the subject of the song talking about this topic but one of the attendees who really should have known what Etta was capable of, didn't know until it was in his face!
Take time to get to know people and have a really great week.
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