I am smarter than some when it comes to expressing your opinions about work online (I assume most of you know of the recent issue where a Starbucks Barista was fired for his youtube video).  But what I will carefully say is this, I sometimes am surprised when I realize I'm only 24 and have been out of college for just over a year.  I have already had a lot of learning experiences in the work place.  And when I say that, I don't just mean it in the way you spin everything to sound like a "good learning experience" for an interview.  No, I've been in some crazy weird situations and learned a lot from having to work through them. I've worked at three places, four years in marketing at a tech company, two years at Starbucks, and now over a year at my current job.  And in that time, I've worked directly with 9 managers.  Each, incredibly different.  I've witnessed the broadest ranges of managements styles from completely hands-off nearly 'define your role, be brilliant, and make it happen' to the ultimate micromanager who insisted on me making myself check-lists of everything I do, for them to be able to even better micro-manage me.  And amidst all that, I've learn what I work best under, where I fall a bit short and where my own weaknesses can be.  Where I come alive, where I get tempted to just fall into mundane minimalism.  I've determined what type of manager I'd like to be, and tried to study those sorts of managers, how they're successful and why? What parts are their natural personality and character, what parts are the result of their education and own personal training. Twice I've worked closely/directly with the head of the company and been able to witness how they distribute work from the top down, how they hold their managers and executives accountable.  Three times if you count a manager of a Starbucks store, which I certainly would, I learned so much from watching one of my managers in particular.  I've learned a lot.  And I am definitely in yet another situation to learn even more.  Hopefully, a lot more.   But boy, I'd prefer to be learning from what to do, rather than what not to do.  The good examples are few and far between.  The good managers are like street lamps and the bad ones like turtles along the road divide.  They're one to a dozen, but thankfully they help remind you where you're going and tend to remain in your sight a lot longer.  The turtles just feel like a rumble and a bump.  Well, sometimes they feel like a really LOOONG strip of rumbles. But... learning. ;)  And I'm young.  (I have to remind myself of this often.)

It's funny, I didn't much want to be a business woman.  I wanted to be a mom by now, at home cuddling little ones and making breakfast.  But God seems to have different plans and it certainly seems I'm being prepared for a different picture than I'd ever expected.  I'm learning all the more to let go and trust Him to lead me where He dreams, to wherever and whoever He sees.  And as some remind me often (thank you!), this is all training for what I can't yet see and will come together in ways I can't yet understand. 

The picture is always much bigger than our gaze.