11/18/2025
It’s a rare rainy day in Arizona, and it brought me great joy to bring out one of the best gifts I’ve ever been given - an umbrella.
At a job early in my career, I worked for an organization where my department head was notoriously temperamental, creating a stressful environment of uncertainty and moving goal posts. When she came into work, you never knew who or what wild requests were coming your way. She could be friendly and direct, or she could be irate and unrealistic. She was either praising or she was harshly berating.
My direct manager made it her personal mission to protect our team of student workers, shielding us from the chaotic ups and downs of the department head. The challenge was communicating to our team the nature of the work environment without raising alarm bells. In a brilliant move, my manager, tapping into her past growing up near water, used nautical weather flags discreetly placed in her pen holder to indicate the “forecast” for the day.
At the time, this system felt like a simple but necessary management tool. Communicate with the team so we could anticipate and respond accordingly. However, it was truly a lesson in teamwork, resilience, and leadership.
When I left, my manager gave me this umbrella with a lovely note - both of which I still have almost 20 years later. The message on the card was so simple, yet heavy with meaning: “A reminder you can make it through any kind of weather.”
