Why Blueshirt?

When I started working as an outdoor guide, there was one workplace that attracted me above all the others.

It wasn’t the work – although that was interesting. It wasn’t the uniform – blue shirts are my colour, but hardly the basis of a solid career choice – and it wasn’t the pay. I can assure you it most definitely was not the pay. It also wasn’t in any particular way related to the boss, the clients, the equipment, or any other readily accessible metric.

What attracted me about this workplace was the culture.

This organisation (through fate, fluke or fabrication – I still don’t know) attracted talented individuals and delivered high quality programs for clients that were a pleasure to work with. And, importantly for me as a young trainee, the workplace was also one that fostered a healthy attitude to sharing, learning and development of new staff.

The business wasn’t perfect. Far from it. The culture was hard to break in to, some core business practices really grated with me personally, and there was some shocking mismanagement from time to time. And there were certainly other places that had outstanding practices and brilliant practitioners – it wasn’t like this business was an outlier of all the exceptionally good stuff.  But this place did always seemed to have an edge and people wanted to be a part of it.

Perhaps I have rose tinted glasses on. Perhaps I am imagining my experience and have romanticised my youth. Perhaps too I’m a little biased.

But over a decade later, I’m seeking to capture some of that culture. To foster a healthy attitude to sharing, learning and development of outdoor leaders. I want to see exceptional people with a valuable mix of outstanding interpersonal skills and first-class hard skills working in the outdoors. And I’d like to repay those who invested in me by investing in the next generation of Blueshirts.