One thing I found over the course of the holiday was the way I interacted and dealt with the locals changed over time. I very quickly adopted some of their mannerisms, their expressions and even occasionally caught myself having a modified accent.
The same speedy acceptance was found with cuisine, trying foods and delicacies that in Australia I would have never dared venture into, and even trying new activities like para-sailing.
It made me wonder why is that when holidays do we adopt the local practices and are willing to change and try new things, but we revert back to our comfort zones and stayed ways because 'that's how it's always been done'?
It was with this thinking that I've made the resolution to keep the holiday line of thought going in my workplace, and spreading the enthusiasm to the rest of my team. For each new idea, change of practice or question asked about old practices and why we do it that way and if we can do better I will present a small cocktail umbrella to that colleague - the cocktail umbrella is a definite icon of tropical holidays! Each umbrella will have a number written on it and each quarter a number will be drawn from a hat and the person who's cocktail umbrella matches that number will win a prize.
Let the holiday love begin at work....
JH
