Respect.

Bare with me, this is a long post, but it’s my 2^nd post so it’s worth the read (in my opinion). Respect. It’s a big thing, always has been and always will be. My generation, meaning those born in generation Y or those born between the 1980s to now are the ones who should be focusing on respect the most. Why, you may ask? Well to start, most people born in that time period have finished their education up to 12^th grade and a majority continued school past that onto college or some type of advanced degree. This may not sound like it has anything to do with respect but it does, because not only is it more competitive to get a job because of the economy and the fewer jobs available but it also makes it harder because opposed to the generations before us, most people have a degree past high school. Having the higher education is extremely beneficial nowadays but it also makes the competition for jobs even greater. So the next attribute needed aside from the higher education, are credible characteristics, such as respect, punctuality, determination and many more.

Now that we’ve gotten past the boring facts and statistics I can talk about the importance of respect no matter what age you are, your idea of how high up you are in status, your intellectualism and whether you think you should be respecting everyone or not.

To get respect, you have to give respect. They go hand in hand, most people are taught this at a very young age. What’s shocking to me is that being almost 20 years old, I have seen people go from having very little respect at a young age (they’re still learning) to high school, specifically years closer to graduation into college losing that respect that had for just a few short years. I’ve seen relationships suffer, friendships end, families drift and jobs fail because of the lack of respect. I don’t have an answer or even a thought that could completely make sense to me on why this happens. All I know for sure, is it does, and I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the deterioration of respect from people I have known for a short time and people I have known for years.

As a child I know I didn’t fully understand it, but one thing I thought was, “this is hard.” I didn’t want to listen to my parents when I had a rebuttal, or obey them when they told me I had to do something that I didn’t want to do, but just as most children, after repercussions I realized maybe I should listen and respect them. I learned at a young age that I wasn’t going to get very far without respecting others. Which is true for everyone, you will not go far if you don’t respect others. This is probably the biggest lesson I learned as a kid and it stuck with me, obviously.

Respect has a lot to do with communication. For those of you have don’t know, I’m a Communication major with a focus in Public Relations at Radford University. I want to be a wedding planner and as many people know, especially my wedding industry workers know, communication is key. Respect can be heavily gained or lost based off of a person’s communication skills, which is why I am so focused on this topic. Everyone, especially those coming close to graduating college and preparing to enter into the work force should be focusing on respect, even if it’s one of the only things they do. Point is, respect others and you, too will gain respect.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.” Philippians 2:31

Systems Theory within Wedding Planning

When you think about interviewing someone, you don’t think it’s going to land you a job somewhere. Typically the system is reversed, someone interviews you to give you a job. In my case, I was the interviewer and the interviewee gave me a job opportunity. I interviewed a friend of mine named Kaitlyn Phipps who is a leader on Radford University’s campus and an up and coming wedding photographer. Kaitlyn and I met at a wedding last year. She was taking pictures and I was running around doing odd jobs for the wedding planner. Some people will just assume that we met because we were doing similar things or “working together”, but they’re wrong. Kaitlyn recognized me from my senior pictures that she saw on Katelyn James’ blog; funny how two, or essentially 3 worlds can collide so easily!

When I interviewed Kaitlyn, my questions focused on the System’s Theory. I asked her basic questions, such as “What do you do on a typical day”, “what’s the most satisfying things about working in the wedding industry and the most challenging”, and “what types of jobs did you do before starting your own?” The questions I really focused on that incorporated Systems Theory, were “how does your business value and use communication”, “what subsystems are within your business”, and lastly I asked her if she knew of anyone that I could talk to and connect with who could give me advice and help towards my future.

Kaitlyn gave me very detailed responses to all of my questions, which allowed us to have a great conversation that also gave me more insight. Kaitlyn really values communication within her business. It is the most important aspect of her business and she uses it mostly with her husband who helps her immensely. She also uses it with other people she encounters while doing the job she loves. She said that each time is different when it comes to how many people are working with her. Each wedding is different and has a different amount of people you have to communicate with but on average, the communication is good. Kaitlyn also included that when the communication is bad, whether it’s between her and the vendors, bride, renters, ext., it makes her job a lot harder. The subsystems she uses are all of the people who make up her business. To be more specific, this could be the person she rents camera equipment from, the bride and groom, wedding party, vendors, wedding planner if there is one, and anyone else she encounters during the days leading up to or day of the wedding.

My last question for her was if she knew of anyone I could connect with. I loved her answer, “most likely!” She has so many networks and was leaving in a few days for a conference where she would meet new people. After the interview, I realized that I learned so much more than I expected to! She offered me two opportunities for the summer that would not only help her, but help me as well.