Bail Out

The Meriam Webster folks announced their word of the year today. If you haven't heard, it is "Bail-Out". I am sure that to most of the world this means financially. I accept their nomination and laud them vehemently. Of course, they are the experts or at least the professionals. But to me it has a different, more personal meaning.

I love my job, really. I get to have all the fun and help high school students learn and grow as business professionals and entrepreneurs, which, if you have read any of my blogs, you have noted, I am an advocate of the entrepreneurial spirit of humanity. I get up every morning and I clap my hands and say, "Let's Rock!"

Much of my job is to work in the communities of Northeast Kansas and establish relationships with entrepreneurs to get them involved with our students. This can take many forms. They can donate money, but I typically leave that up to the development staff. I focus on getting them into the class room by inviting them to speak and hosting them as members of in-class panels, and then, ultimately, I ask them to become mentors during second semester to help students in small groups working on writing their formal business plan.

I better get to the point, before you click over to something else and don't finish my post.

To me "bail-out" means something similar to what Maverick did when he went into a flat spin in Top Gun. I have recognized very early on in my endeavors, the need to account for "bail-out".

When people hear about our program, they get very excited and are interested in getting involved right away. But, being that most of them have businesses of their own, which are affected in some part by the larger, more well known bail-outs and economic fallout occurring this year, plus the daily curve ball that gets thrown at every entrepreneur, I recognize that some of them need to hit the eject button and can't do what they had hoped. This is completely understandable and I want to go on record here saying that I am flexible and appreciate their situations.

Also, for the record, I own this problem.
It's my responsibility and therefor it is my fault if they"bail-out".
BobMarley sang, "Strike de hamma while, iron is ot."

Gotta get 'em involved right away.
Must be more flexible and determined by working with the teachers and administrators to get these volunteers into the classroom as soon as they express interest.
No delay. No phone tag. No excuses!

Whoa, I sounded like the Incredible Hulk there for a sec.

If I gotta pick them up and drive them to the class myself, though, I will.

Basically, what I am saying is, if I do better at getting people involved, quicker, the less chance they will bail on me and the more successful our program will be.

Through it all, this post has been very therapeutic. I was going to rail on some folks and then I realized, about half way through this, that I need to look in the mirror and just do my job better.
Who says blogging is pointless?
Thanks for reading.