May Day?

May 1st is May Day. I thought everybody knew this simple fact.

What is May Day you might ask? You make up a basket of goodies, candy, popcorn balls, or other fun things, you set the basket on a neighbor’s doorstep and ring the doorbell. Then you run. Your hope is you have left an anonymous gift for a friend. Granted in 2018 you could ring a doorbell and not need to run because all of America would hear the doorbell and assume it was just Amazon delivering the latest online order of dog food or laundry soap. No need to rush to the sound of the doorbell in 2018 America, if we were actually out of something we do the old fashion thing and go directly to the store.

To put it more simply. It is the reverse of Halloween. You go door to door leaving gifts instead of begging for things.

As a kid, I was introduced to the May Day holiday in Willmar, MN. I got married to a wonderful girl who grows up in Austin, MN. She knew what it was and in fact, she loved the idea so much she taught our 3 children about the special day. When we moved to Lincoln, NE and most of our neighbors celebrated the fun day. This year on May 1 I walked into Willmar Electric’s education center to see Happy May Day written on the whiteboard. At lunch, with my Nebraska born and raised co-workers, we discussed what everybody put in his or her baskets as kids.

What a happy tradition. At the risk of sounding like the Beach Boys, it was fun, fun fun.

But May Day is going away (or maybe it is already gone).

I haven’t moved, but the doorbell didn’t ring on May Day this year. (Except for the delivery of some ink refills I ordered on Amazon ☺).

My daughter, Sara, said she brought it up at a Minnesota college campus and nobody had ever heard of May Day.

Research told me May Day is downplayed because the communist use May 1st to celebrate their military strength. But I grew up during the end of the cold war, and we ignored the Commies and still had fun while they showed off their tanks. Stalin didn’t steal May Day. We gave it to Putin.

So, what? Why am I focused on May Day? What’s the big deal?

Lack of fun. I think too often we stop doing things we all enjoy. We give up on harmless goodwill for no reason. We just stop.

It happens at work as well. I believe in 100% in continuous improvement. As a company, Willmar Electric tries to improve everything we do every day. We plan to keep improving. But it isn't just changing for change sake.

If something is useful, we will continue to do it. We never just stop because we grew bored or tired of doing something.

Continuous improvement is an important part of our core value of Meeting our Customer needs. (So is having fun and giving your friends a special gift).

(Of course, it is possible May Day is dying, and Halloween is getting bigger and bigger is because our society prefers to take over giving). Because if it is, then I should have written about our core value of Treating Others the Way they want to be Treated).