JMoore

1/9, pages 1-37. 

The main character, Rhonda Bullock, is a nurse-supervisor on her ward.  She has replaced an innovator of many new programs that changed the ward into a highly efficient one.  Rhonda fears and senses a decline in efficiency and attributes it to her management and leadership skills.  She meets an old friend and dines at Takara Too, a quaint sushi restaurant in New York City.  It is here that she meets the owner of the restaurant who describes the restaurant's 4-year run.  Ishy has a keen sense of customer knowledge that she has imparted to her employees.  Customers feel wanted and are individualized rather than just a number.  Recognizing similarities in the nursing field, Rhonda listens intently to Ishy.  Thus ends the first reading.

I recall an initiative that we in the Air Force adopted.  After reading The Pursuit of Excellence we studied ways to improve productivity and efficiency by embracing a philoshopy where the customer is always right.  Yes, even in the Air Force there are customers.  So  Fish Sticks seems to be taking the reader into the field of knowing, really knowing the customer, the patient, the other nurses (employees), and in education--the student. 

Saying this means to me the following:  We teachers have a product--education--that we must deliver to our customer--student--in a manner that the student can absorb.  At the same time, the environment--other teachers--must remain motivated and willing to carry on with the initial wave of energy--GPS for example--in a way that sustains the wave for a long period of time. 

If I and my fellow teachers can adhere to the following scripture:  John 4: 37 (Jesus says)  "One sows and another reaps.  I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors."