The end of a journey...

by Michelle Stumpf

During my eight years with Unique Venues I’ve met many great people and have had the opportunity to be a part of a truly cohesive, caring and energetic team. You don’t depart from an experience such as this without learning a few things, both about yourself as well as about business and professionalism. So, with that in mind, I thought I’d share a few things I’ve picked up along my journey.

I don't know about any of you, but I've noticed that people seem to be more grateful for their work these days. At Unique Venues, we work with a lot of contractors who help us with our website, marketing, direct mail, printing, database, technology, etc. While I'm not suggesting that these people were not enjoyable to work with in the past, I've just noticed that they are more on their game, more eager for work and more grateful for the work that we do give them.

With just 10 minutes left in the third period yesterday, my husband and I had to get into the car to pick up our sons and head to church. Bad timing! My husband was driving and I was on his iPhone getting updates as fast as I could. He kept mumbling to himself that he could not believe that we were missing the end of the game. He felt very Un-American and so did I. And then we learned that Team USA had tied the game with just 24 seconds left. Now what?!#

Of all the social media tools out there, I prefer FaceBook. Probably because it's the first social networking site I started using and I'm pretty comfortable with it.

It's Thanksgiving Day and I'd like to give thanks to Delta Airlines (bet you haven't read that one on FB or Twitter in the last few days).  I'm on a Delta flight to Boston (for my high school reunion) after having just spent 5 days in Florida with my family. Our pilot just gave us all a free connection to the Internet and I couldn't be happier!

I've been IM'ing some friends on FaceBook, catching up on my email and I even sent my in-laws a thank you email for hosting my family for five days.

Last weekend, my oldest son turned 16. In a weak and sentimental moment, my husband and I decided to throw him a surprise party at our house. With the help of his best friend, we put together a guest list with a dozen names on it. Throughout the week, I extended invitations in a variety of ways to those on the list...emailing parents, texting the kids, yelling out my car window in the high school parking lot. You get the idea. Not exactly a Martha Stewart invitation.