It took Sandra Standish, a Chicago advertising sales rep, four years to work up the nerve to get outside of her comfort zone. Once outside, however, it took her just 12 minutes to get back in.
“I didn’t like it out there,” she says. “I couldn’t keep up with the conversation, plus you had to pay twice as much for a bottle of pop.”
Standish realizes this may not be good for her career, since her company reminds all employees to get outside their comfort zones an average of 17 times per day – via emails, wall posters, voice messages and 22 other platforms. It started in 2016, she says, when the powers that be realized the entire staff had gotten outside the box, and they determined that a new place to get outside of was needed in order for the company to meet its goals.
Standish says she’s comfortable with her decision to return.
“When I was outside my zone everybody talked about transformative reasoning and logic-based truisms,” she says. “Nobody knew what Project Runway was.” She says she also kept running into a man named Steve who wanted to test her basement for asbestos.
“It just wasn’t for me,” says Standish. “I’m much more comfortable where I was.”
