Appletini Unplugged

Back when I graduated college I moved to Florida for an internship with Walt Disney World.  After my internship I got my first professional job selling, designing, and teaching real estate agents about websites.  The company I worked for was a la mode, inc.  Cool name huh?   The owner, Dave Biggers built this super successful real estate software company and has been expanding for the last 27 years.  He is still the sole owner and extremely successful.  One thing I truly admired about him was how he treated his employees.  He expected the absolute best from each person every day and we all worked REALLY hard but he always made you feel appreciated.  From company dinners, to nights out on the town to awesome monthly bonuses to free lunch every day of the week.  You worked your tail off but you knew it was not over looked and the guy at the top was very thankful.

One thing I loved was “Spring Break”, it was kind of like Employee Appreciate Week except it was the coolest employee appreciate week that you ever heard of.  Each day had a theme and we still had to come to work but it was like not working at all.  I remember Margarita Monday where we shut the phones down at 3:00 they brought in a REAL margarita machine and amazing taco dinner for everyone.  There were games, prizes, piñatas and a whole lot of fun!! Every day that week had something fun like this to show the employees how much they were appreciated.

“Treat your employees like gold”, something I heard Dave Biggers say once and this message really stuck with me.  I knew that one day when I owned my own business I would institute the same policy.  Heather and I have been working our little tails off since April 1^st and need some time to rest up and recharge our batteries.  Unfortunately with Heather expecting there will be no margarita machine but I decided what would be best for both of us was some time away from our computers, our emails, our Facebook messages and all of the other little daily tasks that we do.  For the next 5 days Appletini will be unplugged!  We are going to take this time to hang with our families, enjoy summer and dream up some fresh ideas!  We’ll still be posting daily but everything is on auto pilot.  We’ll be back in the full swing next Tuesday!!

Peace, Love & Rest!!  Happy Summer Everyone!!