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It became a tradition

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When my wife and I got married, one thing that became clear is that I’m the gift wrapper out of the two of us. It’s not that my wife can’t do it, she just has little patience for it, and I’m somewhat OCD about tight corners and even folds.

A little over 20 years ago, I was wrapping stocking stuffers for my two small daughters and I was using this cheap roll of tape that we had. It was awful, I would have been better off using Post-its than this useless roll of tape that wouldn’t tear on the perforated edge, and wouldn’t stick to anything but itself.

I complained incessantly to my wife about this crappy tape as I wrapped gifts. “If this is going to be my job, we need to have good tape, either we have Scotch Tape or I’m not doing this job!” Yes it was hyperbole, but this tape we had was driving me nuts and it made a fun job into a chore.

Well, my birthday is just over a month before Christmas and the next year when I opened my presents, there was a 3-pack of Scotch Tape poorly wrapped in wrapping paper. “Thank you,'” was my genuinely happy response. It was such a thoughtful gift, I loved it. And there were no complaints come time to do the Christmas wrapping.

20 years later I still get Scotch Tape as one of my Birthday gifts. This year I got a six-pack, my guess is that it was on sale. We won’t go through 6 rolls in one year, but it’s tradition now, and even if we have some left in the house, there are two things I can be certain about… when I open my birthday presents next year one of them is going to be at least one roll of Scotch Tape, and I will be sincerely appreciative of my gift.

What a great day it is today

A few years ago the Ministry updated their student management system from something called BCeSIS to MYEDBC. I hated BCeSIS, which I affectionately called BC-Feces, and was looking forward to the change. But it wasn’t a smooth transition. What made it worse was that it did not take into consideration students working online, starting and finishing their courses outside of scheduled semesters.

As the principal of the online school this was frustrating for me, but even more frustrating for my secretary. She would spend hours updating student files, then the next day her work would disappear. Gone!

I wanted to do something for my secretary, and knew that she wanted a rainbow bowl to put candies and treats in on her desk. I had no idea how hard that request would be? I looked everywhere for a rainbow bowl and could only find something cheap and plastic, or something expensive and ugly.

Then I was ordering some mugs for the school and decided to make her a rainbow mug. At that time, with the frustration she was facing with the student management system, I had a Thursday morning tradition. On Thursdays mornings we had district principal meetings (that were not online) and I’d get to school after the secretaries. On this day I’d walk into my office and declare, “What a great day it is today!”

So, this might was born:

Every secretary has had one since, each one with a different colour on the inside, so we can tell them apart. I still use mine every day, and it will continue to be a gift I give any secretary I have.