The photo to the right was taken yesterday of my wonderful Social Media team at work. That’s me on the left, our manager Lewis squatting and looking goofy, and then Patti and Chuck. We really enjoy what we do and have lots of fun and laughs while still working hard every day. Lewis bought the team the thumbs up gloves that we’re wearing, just as he has given us other fun items related to our world of social media.
While walking from our desks to where we would take the photo, someone mentioned that maybe we should start wearing our thumbs up hands to meetings just to be able to give a giant thumbs up or thumbs down as different ideas are presented. They sure would have come in handy for Roman Caesars a few millennia ago when determining the fate of prisoners in the arenas. I don’t think we’ll wear them to many meetings, but you have to admit that it would be fun and a very transparent way of letting your feelings known about something.
An interesting aspect of wearing these is that we all tend to smile and give a thumbs up to people rather than scowl and give a thumbs down signal. It makes me wonder what we do in the absence of the big hands. I think we still give more thumbs up to folks. I suspect, though, that you know some people who always tend to give thumbs down signals verbally or through body language regardless of what the topic is. Such people missed their calling of being firemen since they would have excelled at throwing cold water over anything and everything.
I think the world can use a few more thumbs up signals between people – family members, coworkers, neighbors, strangers, political parties, friends and acquaintances. We have too much negativity and criticism dominating the news, various media and interpersonal relationships. We can do better.
Leap Year lesson #177 is Give more thumbs up than thumbs down.
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