I've had a rush of emotions during this last week. And it's for that reason that I most hate being injured. When I am in pain I tend to have less control over my emotions--and I hate to even admit that.
My only male cashier has been my trial this week. It became necessary to address the issue of his wandering through the cafe while he was on the clock, and talking with other employees (thus leaving the espresso stand unmanned). What should happen when I begin the discussion but he literally flies off the handle and starts yelling at me. For a full ten minutes I had to keep my cool and put down my desires to cuss him out. I so wanted to lose my temper because he was not listening to a word that I was saying. I finally gave up and asked him, "I want to see if I understand what you are saying. Even though I am trying to help you to keep from getting into a habit that will later on get you in trouble, you are arguing and getting angry with me?" As soon as I said that, his face went blank and he shook as if he was coming out of a trance. Then he proceeds to say that is not what he meant at all. Afterwards he went through a complete personality change that vexed me even more than his arguing with me. He followed me around the floor apologizing and trying to do things for me. All I wanted him to do was his job and keep focused. Then the next day his personality changed again and he insisted on going over my head after getting explanations and directions from me. What angered me the most was the fact that he went running up to the district manager when he arrived at the cafe! He not only went over my head, but also the manager's head! After that he tried to call in a repair order for the espresso machine, which is not even my job, but the manager's job. It has been such a long time since I ever wanted to drop kick anyone, but this employee really did deserve it.
This last Thursday was my follow up doctor's appointment, to go over the MRI results. The news was not exactly what I wanted to hear. Nothing showed up on the MRI's, thus making the test inconclusive. This frustrates me to no end, because now it feels like if there is anything relating to my health that goes wrong, it is not easy, cut black and white problem. It brings back memories of when I had cat scratch fever, stayed in the hospital for a week, and got sent home because for a full week the medical staff could not find out what was wrong with me. Not until after I had been home from the hospital for a few days did they find out what had made me ill. I love having good health. But I hate when things go wrong that are not easily diagnosed. Regardless of my dislikes and yes, even small fears (nothing is worse than thinking your doctor will tell you that nothing is wrong, even when you know that something is wrong, because you are in soo much pain). Unfounded fear, but it was fear none the less. My doctor filled out the paperwork that very day (I was one of the last appointments of the day) and he sent it off to L&I to get approval for an arthroscopic surgery. The blessing in all this was that by about 10am the next day I got a call from the doctors office that the surgery got approved and that we could make the appointment to take care of my wrist. That just does not happen with the state. Approvals take seven to ten days at the earliest. This approval took only a few short hours. That is completely the work of God! The greater blessing was that I was able to make my appointment for the surgery for a week and a half away. Even with these blessings though, it still leaves my head spinning. I've been in pain for nearly two months and in what is practically feels like days away. I've been waiting for healing to come. And now it's only days away. I can't wait.
But at the same time there's issues that are connected at work. for the last week and a half I've been listening to people telling me that I am not doing my job, because of my injury. Even though I'm protected by the state because it was an on the job injury, it does not stop these employers from playing mental games. It's not right on so many levels. They brought me to this new cafe knowing I was injured, and now they want to complain because of the injury. I really don't mind taking time off from all of this stupid corporate politics. But at the same time I wonder just how much of everything I will lose by being gone. Because I am in the building, I get to have my say in things and my touch in how things run. But when I am gone, I lose all of that and someone else's opinions and touch will change everything, because they are them and I am me.
But this is just the thing. Part of my mind is running on the above thoughts, while the other part of my mind is literally counting the cost of leaving the company. What it would take. And it's an odd thought for me, because this job was the one that I was striving for over a year and a half ago. This job was the next step to get my experience to open the way for me to start my dreams of running my own coffee shop and eventually opening my own high end restaurant. Now I am seriously considering leaving this job. I have to admit that I have not learned everything that I wanted to learn when I started with this job. But at the same time I find myself in that same rat race where I am totally being given the run around. I left working for UPS, to join masters, but also because men were being promoted around me who I felt were less qualified than myself. But I once again find myself in that same situation again. I have customers all around me who have wanted me as manager over the ones that I worked for. I know that I can do the job. I have it in me. But instead I keep watching manager brought in from outside of the company who have to be trained from ground zero. They know nothing about the company or policies. They don't know the operation that we provide for Microsoft. I have already trained two managers. I don't get or understand why this company does what it does. But the longer that I stay with the company, the more that I find that I like less and less. I learn more about how not to do things than how to do things. In fact, I was talking with a Sous Chef that we have at my cafe and we were talking about this subject. (She was working to get promoted to Executive Chef.) We both came to the conclusion that we are uncertain if we would accept a promotion unless there was a VERY good package offer that we are given. We've seen enough to know how the company works and we know what the job pay should be. And yet I still wonder, would even that be enough? Rather, I've been trying to wrap my brain around ways to really get my Mary Kay business really off the ground so that I can quit this job without a loss of any kind.
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Ship In The Middle Of The Storm
This morning Pastor Jack spoke upon the passage where the disciples were caught in the middle of a storm, in a boat, while on the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:35-40). I so needed this message after the week that I had. Not that my week surpasses any trying week that anyone has ever faced before. This has only been the most trying one that I have faced to this p0int in my life. And still, I know that years from now this time will seem trivial in comparison to what I will face in the future. To quote a famous comic--with great powers comes great responsibilities. The same is true--with great dreams comes great responsibilities. But also, before great dreams comes to pass, there is a great testing that must be faced to prove one is worthy to step into that dream.
That being said, here is the sea water that I choked on while my own boat perilously rocked back and forth in my storm.
Test One: this week I opened a new cafe for the company that I work for on the Microsoft campus. Not so bad, right? I so looked for this opportunity. But rather than being a prayer come true to prove myself ready to be a manager of such a location, I feel less than worthy to be just a Lead. I found myself in the worst possible situation with this opening--none of my employees have experience. They are all new employees, untrained. Monday turned out to be chaotic. The company was giving away free coffee at the espresso bar. My two cashiers/baristas have been with the company for only a week and had maybe a total of five hours of training in anything. To meet demand I had to do work that my wrist has for the last six weeks prevented me from doing because of an injury. Because I had to do this, I was immediately put into severe pain. When I finished getting the lines taken care of I get told from others (higher ups) that I am not doing my job--taking care of the rest of the cafe or properly training the new employees. Everyone else (all the new employees in the cafe) turned to me for everything. And to top it off, we are not to expect an official manager to the cafe for two months. The person who is filling the position in the mean time has to learn how to do the job, learn how to run the register, and is thrown into this whole mess after being out of the loop because they were on vacation.
Tuesday was a bit better except that one of the people temporarily in the unit, who has previously been a lead for fourteen years, once again thoroughly brow beat me about not doing my job. They don't seem to take into consideration just how dysfunctional the work place is right now, and when I say dysfunctional, I mean DYSFUNCTIONAL! I'm doing the best that I can with no help from anyone. In fact, anyone who is of any position of leadership in the company who has been sent over to help with the opening has been sending me off to take care of things, without having the information if they have been taken care of. In short I spent two hours procuring things that someone else had already taken care of, but told no one about. And in that time I could have been training people to prevent the brow beating that one thought I "deserved".
Wednesday got even more worse. Two people higher up went out of their way to belittle me and put me down, or so it really seemed to me. It's not fair for me to say that this was really their motives since I frankly don't know what their motives are. Rather, the future manager told me that they are here to help me and that I should learn as much as I can from them. That was hard to hear from this manager because the last thing I want to do is debase myself to these people that I feel like are attacking me. An interesting remark was made by this manager while we were having a private discussion. This manager told me that one thing they have learned from observing me the last few days is that I'm thick skinned. I wanted to laugh when I heard that, because it has been situations like this, throughout my life, that I have has to learn how to be thick skinned. For good or bad, it has been a necessity, for as long as I can remember, to have thick skin. For various reasons, I have had to rely on myself with very little protection from other people. And while I know that many people have admired this very quality in my, they fail to see the price that is paid for having thick skin. They do not know the cuts to my heart that are made by words of others--the thick skin hide the effects of such attacks all for the "greater good". They also do not see that after I've protected and fought for myself for so long that I truly need a protector. And the longer that I go without a protector, the thicker my skin has to grow. My skin has to grow thicker because with position comes image. The higher I go, the less I can show the feelings that come upon me. The more that I have to appear to be the pillar and be the strength that others lack. And while I can pull this off, there will always be at least one person who will see the cracks in that pillar of strength that I have to be. But I will leave off on this, because at this point in time I am unable to share with the world what those cracks are and what my thick skin is protecting.
Thursday was a great relief at first because it was a half day for me since I had a doctor's appointment. it was a relief because in essence I got to run away from all the personal attacks. But it was only a temporary relief since everything was waiting for me on Friday. The one higher up that I was having trouble with brought everything back up again and refused to take my hints that I did not want to talk about it with them because the issues were being taken up with other people. Rather, it was like they were trying to make a point of my short comings. The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of another new employee and this person went to take up their issued with me to the future manager. Honestly, it's like salt on a fresh cut to watch this conversation take place in the open and having them move around to dodge me since they were on my floor and I was trying to do my job.
All of this might have been well and good--I could have somehow gotten over it and dealt with it. As taxing as all of this is, it was exponentially increased by the fact that I have been in horrible pain all week long. Over six weeks ago I injured my wrist on the job. It was only last week that I was transferred out to see a specialist, because I just was not healing. The news that I got from the specialist was that it was his opinion that one of two things happened. One, I tore my cartilage in my wrist. Or two, I tore some tendon(s) in between the small bones of my wrist. Before he could determine which it was, I needed to have an MRI taken. That was the appointment I left work early for back on Thursday. And Thursday was fine until the appointment. When the doctor went to inject the dye into my wrist for the MRI, there was complications. He couldn't get the needle between the bones in my wrist. As a consequence, the needle stabbed my bones several times. Between that and all the pressure in my wrist from the dye, I was in extreme pain until I woke up on Saturday morning.
What is interesting is the moments when you can dissociate a painful body part in order to be clear headed and functional at work--until the pain breaks through the dissociation. Sometimes I think it's weird to do that. But at other times I really don't know how I would have made it past the last several weeks without dissociating from the pain. My hell this last week was not having the ability to dissociate from the pain in order to deal with all the drama that I had to face at work. I couldn't be clear headed. I couldn't be normal. I had to constantly fight the urge to find a hidden corner to escape from all the trials caused by the culmination of physical pain and crap that no person should ever have to deal with in the work place (and in the mean time pretend that nothing is wrong on the surface just to get employees to do their job and give customers the service that they want). It is an impossible situation. And yet it happened. And you have to deal with it because it all happened.
If I didn't take all of Saturday off (not attending a meeting, not running much needed errands, not doing things that are pressing things to do, etc.) I really, honestly, think that I would have completely lost my sanity. And that was only a temporary fix, because I know today that if something hadn't happened at church today, Monday would have come around where Friday left off. And yet, I cannot put into words what changed today. But here are some of my notes from the service that really moved me (and my thick skin:)
God does strange things. Sometimes He leads you to what is a dead end. he leads you to no possibilities/impossibilities so that you turn to Him and His possibilities.
When you are in a trial you need to be led by the Spirit, because the Spirit will lead you to a place where you can thrive and grow roots that are deep. You can't have fruit without roots.
Keep your eyes on where you are going not where you are at. Keep your eyes on the blessing not the trial.
Embrace the trial because the trial is your testimony.
Awake the victory in you. The disciples woke Jesus. Jesus is in you.
If Jesus has rescued you before, He will do it again. Remember those times!
REFUSE TO BACK DOWN OR BE MADE INTO WHAT YOU ARE NOT!
God does do strange things. Did God cause me to go through all this trouble this last week? No. We live in a fallen world where "stuff" happens. But the great thing about God is that He takes the "stuff" and brings something beautiful out of it. (This next bit is kind of gross, but it's an image that has gotten me to think today.) Take poop--there is disease associate with handling it without proper procedures and protection, and it's just nasty to play with to begin with. But if you knew there was a turd that had a diamond worth millions just sitting in the middle of it, wouldn't you squash that turd to get that diamond? Being in filth doesn't change the value of that diamond. It's just a terrible circumstance to be found in to obtain that diamond. So it's the same with this last week. I can stand there staring at that painful turd and cry and throw a pity party. Or I can refuse to let that turd rule my life and turn me into what I am not. I have never given up on anything in my entire life, not even calculus in college (although I did wise up and recognize that I am not a rocket scientist! ;). So, what can I learn from all this??? I really don't know. But Monday morning I can go into work knowing that the circumstances there do not rule me. (In fact I can probably giggle to myself as I look at my "favorite" people and imagine them as turds.) But at least I can face another day knowing that God is still God, yes He does have a sense of humor, and that He will still show me the value behind what I have had to go through. This too can be used for my greater good. And I can still look forward to this upcoming Thursday when I go to see the doctor and learn how he's going to fix my wrist so that I can get rid of this pain.
That being said, here is the sea water that I choked on while my own boat perilously rocked back and forth in my storm.
Test One: this week I opened a new cafe for the company that I work for on the Microsoft campus. Not so bad, right? I so looked for this opportunity. But rather than being a prayer come true to prove myself ready to be a manager of such a location, I feel less than worthy to be just a Lead. I found myself in the worst possible situation with this opening--none of my employees have experience. They are all new employees, untrained. Monday turned out to be chaotic. The company was giving away free coffee at the espresso bar. My two cashiers/baristas have been with the company for only a week and had maybe a total of five hours of training in anything. To meet demand I had to do work that my wrist has for the last six weeks prevented me from doing because of an injury. Because I had to do this, I was immediately put into severe pain. When I finished getting the lines taken care of I get told from others (higher ups) that I am not doing my job--taking care of the rest of the cafe or properly training the new employees. Everyone else (all the new employees in the cafe) turned to me for everything. And to top it off, we are not to expect an official manager to the cafe for two months. The person who is filling the position in the mean time has to learn how to do the job, learn how to run the register, and is thrown into this whole mess after being out of the loop because they were on vacation.
Tuesday was a bit better except that one of the people temporarily in the unit, who has previously been a lead for fourteen years, once again thoroughly brow beat me about not doing my job. They don't seem to take into consideration just how dysfunctional the work place is right now, and when I say dysfunctional, I mean DYSFUNCTIONAL! I'm doing the best that I can with no help from anyone. In fact, anyone who is of any position of leadership in the company who has been sent over to help with the opening has been sending me off to take care of things, without having the information if they have been taken care of. In short I spent two hours procuring things that someone else had already taken care of, but told no one about. And in that time I could have been training people to prevent the brow beating that one thought I "deserved".
Wednesday got even more worse. Two people higher up went out of their way to belittle me and put me down, or so it really seemed to me. It's not fair for me to say that this was really their motives since I frankly don't know what their motives are. Rather, the future manager told me that they are here to help me and that I should learn as much as I can from them. That was hard to hear from this manager because the last thing I want to do is debase myself to these people that I feel like are attacking me. An interesting remark was made by this manager while we were having a private discussion. This manager told me that one thing they have learned from observing me the last few days is that I'm thick skinned. I wanted to laugh when I heard that, because it has been situations like this, throughout my life, that I have has to learn how to be thick skinned. For good or bad, it has been a necessity, for as long as I can remember, to have thick skin. For various reasons, I have had to rely on myself with very little protection from other people. And while I know that many people have admired this very quality in my, they fail to see the price that is paid for having thick skin. They do not know the cuts to my heart that are made by words of others--the thick skin hide the effects of such attacks all for the "greater good". They also do not see that after I've protected and fought for myself for so long that I truly need a protector. And the longer that I go without a protector, the thicker my skin has to grow. My skin has to grow thicker because with position comes image. The higher I go, the less I can show the feelings that come upon me. The more that I have to appear to be the pillar and be the strength that others lack. And while I can pull this off, there will always be at least one person who will see the cracks in that pillar of strength that I have to be. But I will leave off on this, because at this point in time I am unable to share with the world what those cracks are and what my thick skin is protecting.
Thursday was a great relief at first because it was a half day for me since I had a doctor's appointment. it was a relief because in essence I got to run away from all the personal attacks. But it was only a temporary relief since everything was waiting for me on Friday. The one higher up that I was having trouble with brought everything back up again and refused to take my hints that I did not want to talk about it with them because the issues were being taken up with other people. Rather, it was like they were trying to make a point of my short comings. The conversation was interrupted by the arrival of another new employee and this person went to take up their issued with me to the future manager. Honestly, it's like salt on a fresh cut to watch this conversation take place in the open and having them move around to dodge me since they were on my floor and I was trying to do my job.
All of this might have been well and good--I could have somehow gotten over it and dealt with it. As taxing as all of this is, it was exponentially increased by the fact that I have been in horrible pain all week long. Over six weeks ago I injured my wrist on the job. It was only last week that I was transferred out to see a specialist, because I just was not healing. The news that I got from the specialist was that it was his opinion that one of two things happened. One, I tore my cartilage in my wrist. Or two, I tore some tendon(s) in between the small bones of my wrist. Before he could determine which it was, I needed to have an MRI taken. That was the appointment I left work early for back on Thursday. And Thursday was fine until the appointment. When the doctor went to inject the dye into my wrist for the MRI, there was complications. He couldn't get the needle between the bones in my wrist. As a consequence, the needle stabbed my bones several times. Between that and all the pressure in my wrist from the dye, I was in extreme pain until I woke up on Saturday morning.
What is interesting is the moments when you can dissociate a painful body part in order to be clear headed and functional at work--until the pain breaks through the dissociation. Sometimes I think it's weird to do that. But at other times I really don't know how I would have made it past the last several weeks without dissociating from the pain. My hell this last week was not having the ability to dissociate from the pain in order to deal with all the drama that I had to face at work. I couldn't be clear headed. I couldn't be normal. I had to constantly fight the urge to find a hidden corner to escape from all the trials caused by the culmination of physical pain and crap that no person should ever have to deal with in the work place (and in the mean time pretend that nothing is wrong on the surface just to get employees to do their job and give customers the service that they want). It is an impossible situation. And yet it happened. And you have to deal with it because it all happened.
If I didn't take all of Saturday off (not attending a meeting, not running much needed errands, not doing things that are pressing things to do, etc.) I really, honestly, think that I would have completely lost my sanity. And that was only a temporary fix, because I know today that if something hadn't happened at church today, Monday would have come around where Friday left off. And yet, I cannot put into words what changed today. But here are some of my notes from the service that really moved me (and my thick skin:)
God does strange things. Sometimes He leads you to what is a dead end. he leads you to no possibilities/impossibilities so that you turn to Him and His possibilities.
When you are in a trial you need to be led by the Spirit, because the Spirit will lead you to a place where you can thrive and grow roots that are deep. You can't have fruit without roots.
Keep your eyes on where you are going not where you are at. Keep your eyes on the blessing not the trial.
Embrace the trial because the trial is your testimony.
Awake the victory in you. The disciples woke Jesus. Jesus is in you.
If Jesus has rescued you before, He will do it again. Remember those times!
REFUSE TO BACK DOWN OR BE MADE INTO WHAT YOU ARE NOT!
God does do strange things. Did God cause me to go through all this trouble this last week? No. We live in a fallen world where "stuff" happens. But the great thing about God is that He takes the "stuff" and brings something beautiful out of it. (This next bit is kind of gross, but it's an image that has gotten me to think today.) Take poop--there is disease associate with handling it without proper procedures and protection, and it's just nasty to play with to begin with. But if you knew there was a turd that had a diamond worth millions just sitting in the middle of it, wouldn't you squash that turd to get that diamond? Being in filth doesn't change the value of that diamond. It's just a terrible circumstance to be found in to obtain that diamond. So it's the same with this last week. I can stand there staring at that painful turd and cry and throw a pity party. Or I can refuse to let that turd rule my life and turn me into what I am not. I have never given up on anything in my entire life, not even calculus in college (although I did wise up and recognize that I am not a rocket scientist! ;). So, what can I learn from all this??? I really don't know. But Monday morning I can go into work knowing that the circumstances there do not rule me. (In fact I can probably giggle to myself as I look at my "favorite" people and imagine them as turds.) But at least I can face another day knowing that God is still God, yes He does have a sense of humor, and that He will still show me the value behind what I have had to go through. This too can be used for my greater good. And I can still look forward to this upcoming Thursday when I go to see the doctor and learn how he's going to fix my wrist so that I can get rid of this pain.
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