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I completely FAILED to truly celebrate Thanksgiving this year.  Even though I swore I was going to show up at mom’s, sit on the couch until dinner was ready, eat and then return to sitting on the couch, all while being extremely cheerful, I completely fell off the “Not my job” wagon.

In other words, I behaved as though I was at work.  I was NOT focused on being grateful.  I’ll try to make that up to my family in a separate context.  For practice, how about if I start by making of list of the things for which I am grateful at work?  Here goes (in no particular order)….

• I am grateful for those folks in Information Technology that have a detailed understanding of systems that hold records and for their passion about those technologies that results in that depth of knowledge.
• I am grateful for the structure of a hierarchical organization so that I can be comfortable that my ability to do serious damage is limited.
• I am grateful for co-workers that bring me into the discussion when corporate information assets are at stake.
• I am grateful to be on the ground floor of our Records Management/Information Governance program so that I might have significant influence on it.
• I am grateful for customers that bring me new challenges to overcome every day.
• I am grateful for outspoken co-workers who remind me that sometimes suffering in silence is not the solution.
• I am grateful for an ergonomically designed workspace. 
• I am grateful to work for a company that is profitable.
• I am grateful to the Records Coordinators in the business areas that “get it” and are on top of the management of records within their area’s daily operations.
• I am grateful to Building & Office Services for hosting an annual “Clean Up Day.”
• I am grateful to my manager for his support.
• I am grateful to my mentor for teaching me to say “Please” and “Thank You.”  Every time.
• I am grateful to be part of a “team building” focus group so that I can shape the way my group functions.
• I am grateful to our off-site records storage facility that is small enough to accommodate our many “one-off” requests and to our other off-site records storage facility that is large enough to handle requests for services anywhere in the country and in other countries.
• I am grateful to technology vendors who incorporate “findability” and “holdability” into their products.
• I am grateful for negative feedback, as it gives me an opportunity to grow and do better.
• I am grateful to my first boss for teaching me “if you have time to lean, you have time to clean” and to my first consulting manager for teaching me to keep digging until I have ALL the facts.
• I am grateful for all those studies that show talking about your holiday with co-workers and doing non-work related Google searches actually IMPROVES your productivity.
• I am grateful for recruiters that reach out to me, as they remind me that I am here by choice.
• I am grateful to be a member of a community of information experts that challenge my assumptions and provide new information to fuel new connections in my knowledge base.
• I am grateful for the opportunity to share what I know with others in the records and information management community and especially grateful for everything I learn during those exchanges.
• I am grateful to have work to do that I believe is important.

Since I am new to this, I had to draft the list, then go back and delete each occurrence of qualifiers such as “despite the fact…” and “even though ….” from my gratitude statement.  

I feel much better about some of the challenges I am facing at work than I did when I started this blog.  Lesson learned.  Hope one of these helped you reframe something that has been causing you stress.  

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!