Deanne Fitzpatrick Rug Hooking Studio

Dear Diary, Over Twenty years ago when I was an early twenty something , I needed to hire someone as secretary for a research project that I was managing, as part of a larger community organization. The day we were doing the interviews, I looked out the window and saw thgis tall confident woman walking down the road, towards our door. I thought”Oh my god, is she applying to the secretary?” She walked in and said, “Hi, I’m Susan Jones.” She was tall and grey haired and one of those people whose intelligence shown from her eyes when she smiled at you. I was young. I did not know a thing about computers. I had never had anyone ever asisst me with anything. I was nervous of her. She seemed so smart and confident. I thought she’d bowl me over, take over the project. I thought at the time, “She might be smarter than me.” Hiring someone who was smarter than me was frightening.  After she left the interview I realized that what was more frightening though, was not hiring someone whom you thought was smarter than you, when they wanted the job. Susan Jones was smarter than me with computers and probaslly at a hundred other things. Luckily she came on board as part of that project, and she helped make it work. Working with her taught me that you need people around you who are better than you at some things. As she became my friend, she also became the best friend of one of my very good friends. Twenty years later they still talk all the time. I only hear about Susan through our mutual friend now, but every time I think of her I am reminded what being with her taught me. I learned that it is essensial to surround yourself with people who are better at stuff than you are and not be threatened by it but to be expanded by it. That is how I feel about the “Women who used to work for their husbands club” at the studio. Each one of them is quite a bit better at somethings than I am. They approach things differently than me. They are a smart bunch, and every day I leave the studio, I thank my lucky stars. Every one of them has a spectacular talent for something.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 4:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.