The Meetings Will Continue Until Morale Improves...

In one of my first jobs after college, my boss had one of those office novelty desk plates that said, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." It was a joke that contained the kernel of truth: morale was not good in our office.

Here at Camp Harlam, the morale is very high. It's so high, in fact, that instead of beatings we have meetings. Sure, we have the usual morning faculty meeting and daily gatherings with our assigned camp unit. But we also have a steady stream of visitors who want to meet with us - "machers" from the movement, URJ department heads and others from Union HQ and "the field" (Rabbi Mike Mullen of the URJ Youth Division will be here tomorrow, Rabbi Rex Perlmeter, our new regional director is here today, Abbye Eisenthal, our regional youth director and her equivalent from the PA region have come through), Jewish recording artists come for artist in residence gigs (Dan Nichols is here now), etc... We have "meetings" with all of them to share best practices from their experience and ours. We seek synergy in our efforts and push each other to keep climbing to new heights.

I didn't stay in that first job too long. The endless beatings and data crunching weren't the biggest problem. It was the lack of morale and my realization that nobody wanted to meet with us because they'd rather beat back low morale than meet it (and potentially catch it). It's nice to have so many meetings. I assume they'll continue as morale only improves.