Bone # 2
I used to lie on the floor with my feet up against the wall in the back corner of a file room that had a door that remained open. You don’t have to ask me twice to elaborate.
During this specific time working in an office:
1) I would sit with a yoga block behind my back at my desk to encourage proper posture and provide some additional support.
2) I would avoid the elevator and take the stairs up the six floors.
3) I would spend my lunch time in the back corner of a file room that had a door that remained open.
It was during this time of my life and journey into entrepreneurship that I discovered a couple of critical things:
🦴(1) It is very expensive to eat out.
🦴 (2) Pain has many forms.
🦴(3) Working together physically, does not equate to working together.
🦴(4) Business hours, do not exist for all businesses (except the banks…)
The office did not feature a large table (other than the boardroom which had nice wood and no stains) and therefore there was no where that was acceptable for co-workers to mingle, check-in, or sit down to enjoy a tea together. Instead rooms had doors. Walls were built. Tinted separators were erected. It is also true that the doors would often remain open, as a promise of a welcome.
Many of my colleagues would eat at their desk or eat out. As someone who was generally broke I could not afford to go eat out each day 🦴 (1) so I would pack my lunch, wolf it down at my desk, and head to the file room for my lunch-time ‘yoga’.
Yoga, to me, is not spiritual. I am not one of those people who finds great solace in the ritual or history of yoga. I do, however love stretching and fancy stretching is sometimes called yoga, so we shall henceforth call my stretching: yoga.
Lunch-time file-room wall-floor yoga soon became part of my office brand and identity; some thought it was weird, some found it endearing, I however, found it to be essential to my well-being. Asides from the not-so-obvious benefits of sitting against a wall with your feet above you (Pressure Relief, Reduces Inflammation, vein health) this was an opportunity to be away from my desk and would allow me to re-connect with myself…and my boyfriend on the other end of a text message (who recently won ‘Boyfriend Of The Year’ for having a folder of every photo I have ever sent him).
Proof #1
Proof #2
More Proof
One day a client walked in with my manager and my wall-sitting yoga startled them. With most of my blood in my head I smiled at the client and said “don’t mind me….it’s just totally legit wall-yoga, a normal Tuesday activity”.
My manager said, “Yes- that’s just J’aime…she does that” and the client smiled, we all laughed and they left.
I like to think that moment was the weirdest part of his day. Maybe he’d tell his wife or kids…”Hey kids, I went to the accounting office today and one of the minions was on the floor with her feet up against the wall and it looked weird. So, how was your Tuesday?”
The next day I was summoned into the managers office and was kindly instructed to ‘please close the door now when I am in the file room’. I was floored, no pun intended. Heaven forbid a client walk in and think we aren’t just feverishly typing away on calculators and computers. Heaven forbid the client see the humans being humans instead of just an email signature.
Was it really that bad for the client to see a worker, who may or may not be at the bottom of an office hierarchy, on their lunch break, in a fairly private space, partaking in an activity that was clearly just for their own benefit? Meditating. Resting. Stretching. Preparing. Processing. Trying. Just trying to find the balance between their job and their body.
What the manager(s) couldn’t see was that their work force was suffering. As my work at the office continued so did my hip bursitis that I would treat and manage biweekly with physiotherapy that included acupuncture and ultrasound treatments 🦴(2). I had believed this pain was the consequence of taking the stairs everyday, or the office chair, or my posture or any combination of all three. Spoiler alert: the moment I left the job my hip pain disappeared in a psychosomatic poof 🦴 (2).
I think we were all suffering. From the lack of positive feedback, from the isolation of physical barriers 🦴(3) and the absence of a shared common space as simple as a coffee-stained table with enough chairs for everyone.
When I opened my virtual doors at Breeze Business Management and started growing the team I knew I didn’t want an office. I wanted a team that was composed of people who appreciated working from home. I wanted a team interested in working on their own schedule; individuals committed to finding their balance on what works for them, and the work that needs to get done for the clients.
I strongly believe that working apart does not equate to working apart.
How This Affects What We Offer:
Every client of Breeze Business Management has a client check-list and summary sheet for internal purposes. The work gets done but whether or not it gets done at 9:00 AM on a Monday or 8:00 PM does not matter to us when the deadline is two weeks from Friday. What this results in is a happier team who has autonomy over their work, who can work when they please, so long as they hit the deadlines and follow the guidelines. When you reach out to team@breezebusinessmanagement.com you’re reaching a shared inbox monitored by 7+ people. It’s very rare that we’d miss any correspondence with 7+ sets of eyes on an e-mail. On top of the flexibility that we offer to our team members we also extend that to our clients because business owners rarely clock-out 🦴(4). When they get home at 7 PM from a long day running their business and they have a question for our team and just ten minutes on the computer before they need to give their kid a bath or dog a walk, they are welcome to e-mail us. (If someone is around that evening working away, they might even answer right away).To be clear- we follow the client’s lead. We won’t interrupt your evening of peace with an email asking for a statement. We’ll schedule that email to arrive in your inbox at 9:00 AM if that’s the client expectations that we’ve discovered through chatting with you and setting up the file.
We also don’t pretend to have an office. You can’t just pop in and use our photocopier. We work remotely and if you feel the urge to want to check in on our work on your file, you’re invited to schedule a lunch with me anytime and I’d like Tall Trees please: 1 705 789 9769.
There is a remote culture that I am trying to cultivate through Breeze for both the team and the client that is simple: help when you can, where you can. Get your part of the work done when you can, by the deadline. If you don’t know the answer that’s OK, let’s find out. If you can’t pick up the call because your legs are up against a wall for lunch-time file-room wall-floor yoga, take an extra five minutes to get the blood back to your head and we will connect very soon.
🦴Coming Up On The Bone Story🦴
As The Daughter Of A FireFighter, I Know What Fire Feels Like
