The Common Thread

MSP’s Carbon footprint just decreased—by a lot. I bought a Toyota Prius and joined the ever growing club of Hypermilers! Currently I have been holding steady at 60 miles per gallon!

My wife gave birth to our 5th child, and I returned to work from my paternity leave wearing a new Stetson Fedora and driving a new Prius. I mentioned to a co-worker how I was driving past her house in my new Prius and if she would like to car pool. She agreed to meet up at a nearby park and ride.

It seemed we were trend setters, because during that same week, two new sets of co-workers who lived near each other began carpooling! Adding in Julie and Angela, who have been carpooling for over a year, that brings the grand total to 4 carpools! 4 cars off the road during rush-hour!

It is beautiful that MSPs carbon footprint has dramatically decreased and we all have more money in our pockets from saving on gas—but in addition to that we are developing a deeper sense of office community. At MSP, we pride ourselves on our work ethic and efficiency, but that doesn’t allow for too much time to interact in a casual manner.

We celebrate birthdays, occasionally eat lunch together and more recently work-out together (see Nancy’s post)—but the chance to chit chat about non-work related topics in the car is refreshing and it helps strengthen the office community—helping us all work more smoothly and happily together.

The success of any business ultimately depends on the people who make the business run. When those people can form a pleasant and healthy community, the greater likelihood that the business will continue to succeed.

Don’t forget there are many other benefits to carpooling, such as HOV lanes and Pool Rewards.

Have you read the articles about squeezing in a quick workout and thought yeah, right, I don’t have time for that? When Denise Austin recently appeared in an article in the Washington Post about the importance of getting up from your desk every few hours and move around, one person got inspired. Jon, our Senior Graphics Designer, mentioned this and got us started with the idea of taking Denise Austin’s advise to do some jumping jacks. Upping the challenge, I said “let’s do push-ups”.

So now a couple weeks later, our workout group has expanded to 11 MSP staff committed to taking a mid-morning and mid-afternoon exercise break. A quick break in the morning is great to get you going after the caffeine has worn off and the afternoon break heads-off that 3pm lull.

We have a few simple exercises that everyone can do at their own personal level and its just competing against yourself, not what anyone else is doing. What’s exciting to see is that we all have different strengths in our workouts. Who knew that tiny, little Penny (the oldest of our workout group, and I say that with all due respect) can hold a plank position for 3 minutes! Try it. If you’ve never done it you’ll be lucky to hold plank for 45 seconds.

Each of has a different motivation too. Julie B. has an upcoming wedding and wants buff arms in her bridesmaid gown. Jamie’s kids called him out on the ‘dad gut’ and Jon – well, he’s got 5 kids to keep up with so he needs lots of energy. Beth, a regular workout guru anyway has this as just a little extra strength training and of course it’s encouraging to see the boss get on the floor and do pushups with the rest of us. No excuses if the boss is doing it, right?

Much like our work environment, we all have different strengths and motivations that we bring with us and the teamwork of encouraging each other carries us further as a team than what we could do individually.

Almost time for push-ups.

And if you’re wondering what exercises we do, we do push-ups, plank, ab crunches and lunges.