...AND You Can Nap While You Work! (Road Trip Day 3)

by Nicole

Day 3 of our adventure marked that (very happy) departure from Motel 6 and our journey from Effingham, Illinois to Kansas City, Missouri - home of Hallmark Cards! We traveled along what seemed like endless highway before arriving to the headquarters.

Examples of endless highway:

Once we arrived, we were greeted by a young, bubbly creative recruiter named Bess. She was kind enough to give us an in-depth tour of Hallmark and to tell us about the company's mission and history. We were very impressed by everything, but I think that we have all come to the conclusion that among Hallmark's most notable aspects was it's designated "Nap Room" where employees were allowed to venture during the course of the day to recharge. We all have an affinity for napping (in college we all napped more than we did in pre-school...), so the fact that Hallmark had a room designated to the sport of napping was thrilling.

Here are some picture from our tour of Hallmark:


A space devoted to illustration inspiration for employees!

Crown lighting!

After touring the building, we were able to sit down with two writers for Hallmark, Andre and Molly. We loved hearing their stories and advice!

Andre used to be a circus clown!

Molly was a freelance writer and during our interview I learned that she wrote a book on writing greeting cards that I own! It was actually the first book I had ever gotten on the subject. Coincidence?! I think not!

We left Hallmark inspired, ready to face the rest of our trip and hungry. Bess recommended a local spot over the Kansas border called Oklahoma Joe's. Though our stomachs were growling, we all decided that before crossing the state line into Kansas we had to visit the world's largest shuttlecock first. Can you blame us?!

View from inside the shuttlecock:

We satiated our need for a world's largest thing (for the time being) and headed over the state line to Oklahoma Joe's. The restaurant resided directly next to a gas station, but it's line of customers proved that it was definitely NOT a place that Guy Fieri would classify as a dive. We struggled through the unfamiliar lingo of the menu and tried out best to order like the locals. We considered ordering in our finest Kansas City drawl, but thought it in our best interest to refrain after the Motel 6 incident.

The crowd in Oklahoma Joe's:

Kansas City (Missouri and Kansas) left us feeling very full and very creative. It opened our eyes to a type of work environment that we would all would be happy to be a part of. Andre and Molly proved to us that passionate work can also be (and often is) meaningful work. It was obvious that both them and Bess feel fulfilled by the work that they do and that they are living out the company's mission of "creating a more emotionally connected world by making a genuine difference in every life, every day". They certainly made a difference in our lives by taking the time to share their stories with us.