My feet are my hardest workers and they’re not very intelligent,
so it’s important that I have a meeting with them every morning,
which usually occurs beside the jogging stroller.
My feet may still be yawning, so I get to the agenda items right away.
We discuss the likely terrain for the day and the anticipated places
where breaks will be taken based on various criteria,
potential deadlines, and the availability of restaurants
along the way.
Here’s a tip: never try to negotiate walking time with your feet.
They aren’t very good at telling time, so best to keep it off the agenda.
Then, when the major agenda items are completed,
there’s an open session during the meeting when my feet can
discuss their own issues. My feet, for instance, are a bit shi shi foo foo
and are always asking about swelling.
“We don’t like the SWELLING,” they cry.
“It makes us look FAT and we want to look PRETTY.”
I remind them that at night, I raise them, like the gods they are,
over the rest of my body so that they can look down upon it
with great power. And then, as if by magic, the swelling is gone
by morning and they look beautiful and thin again to start the day.
“YAY,” they cry in unison.
Sometimes they’ll ask about a pedicure.
I tell them that for now they need to stay strong and calloused,
but that we can add it to the agenda after we reach Vancouver.
They sometimes ask me to change the socks more frequently,
“THEY STINK”, but I remind them that socks
are a management decision, made based on comfort,
not odour prevention.
It’s good to end the meeting with enthusiasm,
so we all do high-fives and my feet yell,
“LET’S WALK”, and my hands yell, “LET’S PUSH”.
And then we wander off to our respective tasks.
It’s important to be a good leader in support of
your front-line workers. So, if my feet work particularly hard
with very few complaints, I sometimes buy them a pizza.
It’s good for their morale.
