Waggener Edstrom Worldwide

Okay, so maybe I’m a little excited. But it was my first public run! And I’m not really athletic.

Well, I’m into Iyengar yoga, but I only started running a couple years ago — in my mid-40s. I generally only go a couple miles, maybe three in perfect weather. I almost didn’t do the Shamrock Run. I wasn’t really ready. And I worried it might be raining. Or cold. Plus, I missed the regular registration because of my hesitations, and my only option was a special, more expensive registration to raise funds for Doernbecher Children’s Hospital. A great cause, but I had to register on a specific date at a specific time and only a certain number of people would get in … it didn’t sound promising.

But then I heard about the WE Athletic Sponsorship, and something possessed me to inquire whether defined-term employees (DTEs) are eligible. They are indeed — which is very cool. It was a sign of encouragement. Not that I couldn’t have paid the registration myself, but something about making the inquiry pushed me over the edge. Something about mentioning to someone that I was thinking about doing it gave me the courage and resolve I needed to move forward. And I got in during the super special, limited-number-of-registrants period!

Working at WE in general can be a bit like this for me. As a pinch hitter for the content team, I’m often given the random, fast-turn writing assignments that the full-time writers can’t take on because of their other workload. I’ll get projects with unusual scope or the ones that are a bit ambiguous in terms of what they require. It’s thrilling to try something new, to stretch my creativity and work hard to meet deadlines. But I have to admit, sometimes at first I feel like I’m out on a limb.

It never fails. The collaborative environment, the no-questions-asked support from logistics wranglers, the utter confidence that my teammates bestow upon me pushes me forward into all kinds of unknown lands where I grow and succeed time and again. That’s what I love about working for WE. Even as a DTE, I’m given great opportunities to do good work — and to do it with really smart, talented, funny people who cheer me on as I cross project finish lines.

And as a DTE, the Athletic Sponsorship benefit was unexpected and awesome. I came in at 5,366th place in the 5K category. Given that nearly 10,000 people ran this race, that’s not so bad. Mostly it’s just rewarding to have done it — and really cool that WE unknowingly egged me on and supported me in contributing to such a good cause.