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A Mom's perspective: I don't know anything
by Mary Welch
January 1, 2007
My son turned 14 last month. When he hit 13, friends and family started telling us what to expect as he transitioned into the teen years. Lock himself in his room for hours. Check. Resist hugs and kisses. Ditto. Be embarrassed when seen in public with his parents. Oh, yeah. We have just recently hit the “Mom, you don’t know anything” phase. I was warned but it's now in full blast.
So, I started to think maybe he was right.
There are a lot of things I don’t know.
Like I don’t know why the Atlanta City Council won’t wake up and realize that one of their touted tourism and quality of life features – intown neighborhoods -- are being destroyed by developers building gaudy oversized mega-mansions in a neighborhood of quaint 1920s bungalows. The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation has place Virginia-Highland on its top 10 list of Places in Peril.
The convention and visitors bureau will have a hard time telling folks about our wonderful neighborhoods when they look like every other neighborhood in the country and all the wonderful quirky restaurants and stores are gone and replaced by “retail-level” shopping in shiny mixed-use complexes. Once these homes are destroyed, they’re not coming back. I don’t know why they won’t take action now and get some regulations in place. I don’t know why we’re allowing this to happen.
I don’t know why with all the talk that downtown, Midtown and Buckhead are filling up with people who live, work and play right there that city traffic is at its worse. Did we really think that just because you live in Midtown and work in Buckhead that you wouldn’t drive to work? Did we really think all these new intowners would really take MARTA?
I don’t know why Sandy Springs police feel the need to set up speed traps along Ga. 400. People are stressed enough on that highway without seeing those city police cars hiding just as people are entering and exiting the highway. It sort of reminds me of those Southern speed traps and small-town Southern cops that 60 Minutes loved exposing.
And I don’t know why more companies aren’t looking at Best Buy's latest innovation to see how to really get the maximum results from their employees. Basically, it's called “leave them alone and let them do their work.” Officially it's called ROWE for “results-only work environment.”
Yes the nation's leading electronics retailer doesn’t care where or when you work – just get the job done. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours. People are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, as long as they get their work done. The hope was that ROWE, by freeing employees to make their own work-life decisions, could boost morale and productivity and keep the service initiative on track, according to an article in Business Week.
It seems to be working. Since the program's start, average voluntary turnover has fallen drastically. Meanwhile, Best Buy notes that productivity is up an average 35 percent in departments that have switched to ROWE. Employee engagement, which measures employee satisfaction and is often a gauge for retention, is way up too, according to the Gallup Organization, which audits corporate cultures.
Any HR person will tell you that the new generations of workers are demanding careers that provide “work-life balance”, but it was always the employers who were basically defining what that meant. That's why so many young people – and women – are opting out of corporate America. Finally, someone in corporate America is listening and responding.
It makes immeasurable sense to me. But then, what do I know? I’m only a mom. Of a teenager.
