As 2024 comes to a close, all I can say is: It’s all about the team. You know how that happens when everyone supports everyone and collaboration sparks creativity?
That’s what’s happening now with EBT. There is a collective resonance in which we bounce positive energy back and forth to each other. For example, today I met Debbie, who is working with Shelby, Laura, and Cassidy to redesign provider training.
Then, the group emailed me a video they had created, and I accidentally clicked on the Zoom line to join the meeting. Everyone was engaged there and there was definitely some magic going on. We talked a little and resolved the last issue at hand.
passion for purpose
Those who are there and those who aren’t (Michael, Dev, Andrea, Kelly, Walt, Franny, and our entire team of providers) all have one thing in common. It’s a passion for purpose.
Oddly enough, that may be the real heart of EBT after all. All science takes us back to basics. If we can clear enough of the inevitable trauma circuits that tend to be encoded in our brains in even the greatest of lives, the energy for meaning shines through. You feel it, and others can feel it in you too.
When the system doesn’t work
I remember some of the work environments that didn’t work well. My first job was at Burger Queen, where I was making $1.50 an hour in Radcliff, Kentucky, right after graduating from the University of California, Berkeley as a military wife. There was more drama than fries. And I worked in the complaints department at Blue Cross in San Francisco’s financial district, where no one told anyone (it was ice cold). And my other job before going back to graduate school was as an escrow secretary for a company where sexual boundaries were routinely crossed. It was the 70’s.
Fresh out of the University of California, Berkeley, I needed a job while I waited for my husband to finish basic training. Jobs for military wives were scarce.
But still, so many lessons were learned. At Burger Queen, I learned how to ask my boss for more time, even if that time was spent scrubbing outdoor tables with detergent. And how to be one no matter what. It was actually quite fun.
At Blue Cross, I learned that even seemingly kind bosses can quickly become aggressive when they realize they don’t need me anymore. I trusted her and felt loved. And when she left to go to Kentucky with her husband, who is in the military, she said, “This solves my problem.” I learned how aggressiveness can bring people down on the spot. I certainly gained some wisdom there.
At the company in the title, there were many things that crossed the line with the love of the management and staff, and I learned that the work involved danger. I also loved organizing chaos into order. This was as easy as entering the closing statement for a complex transaction.
Gifts vary, but there is always a gift
This blog started as an ode to the EBT team, but looking back, I experienced what I should have experienced along the way. So many images from my early sloppy work shine with images of extraordinary people who overcome huge obstacles and live their own unique style of purposeful life.
The gift now is to be part of an amazing team that is making magic together, and I’ll savor it, but I’ll probably appreciate it even more that everything is perfect no matter what. . We can get what we need, when we need it, and in the amount we need. At least that’s what I’ve been doing for years.
