Head of Global Operations

Greetings! 

(or “Pozdrowienia!” as they say in Poland).

It’s coming up to *that* time of year again and the Big Guy in the Red Suit has asked me to write my ‘Terrific Task Tuesday’ reports in the run up to the Big Day. 

My name’s Toomer and I’m one of Santa’s elves. My full title is Head of Global Operations in our Centre for the Monitoring and Recording of Good Deeds, but if we all went around calling each other by our full titles, we’d never have time for conversation. Every year, I spend six months up in Head Office at the North Pole. The rest of the year I travel the world, visiting everywhere from vast countries like Australia to tiny islands like Nauru. Nauru’s in the Central Pacific and used to be called ‘Pleasant Island’. The children there really live up to that name, so it’s always interesting to visit.

You see, my job is to catch children being pleasant. I’ve got a spreadsheet with every child’s name on it, where they live and what terrific tasks I’ve seen that they’ve been doing. You’ll know it as the ‘Nice List’. You should see his eyes light up when I email the latest copy over to the Boss.

Some children write and ask me what sort of terrific tasks Santa prefers. He always says “wherever there’s another person, or animal, there’s an opportunity to be kind”. So, that’s it. No preferences. Just look for the chance to be kind. Opportunities are like yellow cars - you can go through life never noticing them at all, but once you start looking, they’re everywhere… 

One example from the spreadsheet is Stefan from Hamburg who watered his grandmother’s plants while she was away. Her garden was blooming when she returned.  

Another Terrific Task I was impressed by was Christina from Brazil who helped her neighbors put up the nativity scene in town square.

So, that’s who I am and what I do. More Terrific Tasks next week…

See ya’!  (Or “Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast!” as they probably say somewhere or other).

Toomer