Farewell to Ember

There's a little bit of sadness here at Optimum this week as our very own Ember has decided to make a career change and go back to school so that she can teach. In 2008, Ember was voted Employee of the Year, and the things said about her then are still true now:

 

"1. A great Team Player.

2. Always positive with me and great help with any problems.

3. Takes everything in stride.

4. Truly genuine and has Optimum’s success at heart.

5. She has won people over with her actions and work ethic.

6. Has become a driving POSITIVE force within her department but throughout Optimum. It is a pleasure to work with her on a daily basis.

7. I have always admired her composure in any situation. I’ve always wanted to be like her.

8. What a difference this young lady has made in the way she handles the Client Service department and her interactions with the other departments. She wants to learn everything and has a good demeanor about her.

9. She has many qualities of the award plus has taken on many hats effectively in her first year at Optimum. She goes above and beyond on a daily basis and is not afraid of challenges.

10. She has served a s the team leader in a great fashion. Does more than is expected and has made the customer service department function as a whole.

11. The way she treats customer service and the rest of the family is an excellent example for the rest of the team.

12. She has done so much in such a short time and will go above and beyond to do her specific job duties. She is the epitome of what Optimum represents!"

I know for me, having Ember here when I first came to Optimum has been great. She was friendly, personable, understanding, approachable, and did a great job of showing me the ropes. We will all miss her a great deal and we wish her well in her future endeavors.

What do you think?

I love watching videos from RSA Animate. I'm a pretty visual person, and I love the way that they tie together images and speeches so you're not just watching some guy talk for an extended period of time. Its very engaging and creative.

So, today I was watching a video on empathy. The speaker was talking about mirror neurons.Mirror neurons were first discovered in monkeys; when one monkey watched a person cracking and eating a nut, the same neurons fired in the monkey's brain as would have fired if the monkey itself were cracking and eating the nut. Humans have these same neurons and we label the emotion that they cause us to feel "empathy."

What was most interesting to me was this: If we're all soft-wired with these mirror neurons, why do some people do such horrible things to others? Do we have to have had an experience to be able to really feel those same feelings? In other words, I'm wondering if the monkey's same neurons fired because the monkey had cracked and eaten a nut before, but if the monkey were watching someone do something like talk on a cell phone, the monkey may not have been able to "empathize" because it doesn't know what it's like to talk on a cell phone. Or, perhaps mirror neurons are rather weak in some people and can be overpowered by other sociobiological factors....

Anyway, just some food for thought. Would love to hear what you think!

Environmental Follow-up

After my Environmental Tips blog, Dorothy was kind enough to give me some more material about Optimum's environmentally friendly practices. Optimum is working to become a certified Sustainable Green Printing Partnership Printer, a process that takes about a year to complete. According to SGP's website, their mission is "to encourage and promote participation in the worldwide movement to reduce environmental impact and increase social responsibility of the print and graphic communications industry through sustainable green printing practices." In our efforts to become more environmentally sustainable, we have signed SGP's Guiding Principles document. In brief, this means that we have committed to proactively observe all applicable environmental laws, to whenever possible use materials derived from renewable resources, to maximize recycling efforts, to attempt to use raw materials that do not harm the environment, to inform the community about sustainability and to focus on all aspects of sustainability, including social, environmental and economic.

It's been really encouraging to me since arriving at Optimum to see how socially responsible the company is. I've always thought that, beyond providing quality products at good prices, every company has the responsibility to give back to the community. Sadly, a lot of corporations care more about generating a profit than about maintaining ethical practices. It's great to see Optimum can do both.