New Store, New Bookcase

Remember this post? When I first started at Whole Foods, I was at a different store...and I found a bookcase...

http://notthenewyorktimesbookreview.blogspot.com/2013/06/getting-acclimated.html

I've since transferred to another store, and there is a another bookcase here too. See?

     

What a mess! There might be some interesting books there, but it sure would be hard to find them.

At Whole Foods, one of our Core Values in Team Member excellence and happiness. I love this. To that end, every store has a TMAG - Team Member Awareness Group. Our job (I am part of this group) is to recognize, appreciate, and provide fun things for the team members at our store. What a great thing this is!

As part of this, I've taken it upon myself to make this bookcase more inviting. Cull the books no one is reading and no one is likely to read (which frankly, may be most of them), clean it up, and somehow get some good books on there so people might acutally want to browse. Want to read.

To get some good books on there, I'm going to send an email out to all team members in my store. I'm going to ask them to contribute a book or two. And not just a book they were going to get rid of anyway, but a book they loved. I'm also going to ask them to write in it and say why they liked it, and sign their names. That way, team members can get to know one another through books.

Here's the email I will be sending to team members at my store...

Hello Team Members!

If you've been in the break room recently, you might recall seeing the bookcase in there. It’s a rather sad bookcase right now. It's not really all that inviting.
TMAG would like to change that! The break room bookcase will be getting some love. There will be sorting. There will be organizing. There will be new and different books.

And this is where you come in. There are two ways you can participate.
One - you can let me know what kind of books you like to read. What would you like to see in this bookcase? Do you like fiction? Mysteries? Sci-fi? Romance? I also want to have some cooking/food/nutrition books on there, and input on what might be welcome additions to that section would be helpful as well.
Second - I'd like to ask you to contribute a book (or two? ( if you’d like – this is purely voluntary). I’m asking that it not be a book that you didn't like very much and you were going to get rid of anyway, but a book you've really liked, loved, or was impactful for you in some way. On the inside front cover, write what this book meant to you, or why you liked it. Sign your name. And we'll have it on the bookcase for others to read. Likely, if you really liked a book, someone else will too.

I’m looking forward to hearing from you! Let me know if you have any comments, questions or ideas…about books or the bookcase!

What would YOU want to see on a bookcase at your work?