"37 days and counting...."

To those of you who read both my FB updates AND my blog, you may be pleased to hear an explanation of this recent status.

Yesterday marked exactly 37 days till the Wednesday before Thanksgiving Thursday. Two years ago, the Monday after Thanksgiving, was when I went in for the interview that almost immediately got me the job I'm currently working. So in a way, it was 37 days until I could officially plaster "two years" on a resume as my tenure at the company. And actually, more specifically, I'd put "2009-2011," which sounds even better.

With this in mind, 37 days (35 now, if you count yesterday and today) is the length of time I've given my company to get their act together. If I don't see a marked improvement before then, they're fired.

Here's the problem. I feel relatively secure (most days) in my job, and I genuinely enjoy the activities I perform. I think I do them quite well, frankly, in addition to actually liking them. But it's an absolutely miserable place to work, and it came to a peak on Monday as I emailed the new temp a frank answer to her question, "Does it get any better? I really want to be part of a team working toward a common goal!" I had to tell her that she'd seen a pretty typical couple of weeks at the company.

God was supremely gracious and brought to mind that the bitterness and complaining spirit had crept into my soul from the abundant supply available seeping from the walls of that discontent-infested office. And that I'd had a lot going on the last few days... perhaps I needed to take a breath and pray.

I asked God for wisdom as I read my Scripture passages for the day and LOL'd that my reading included a passage from Ecclesiastes, but I figured that might not be the sign I was looking for. At least not to answer the question of fighting TODAY'S battles. That would be a little too easy....

What did sound a little more like a word from God was that I'm in this position for a reason. The rampant injustice boils my soul... and the fact that my heart responds thus is quite possibly the biggest reason I'm here. I'm NOT gracious. My pride is what's ticked off more than anything. And there will always be people who will treat me like bull dung, so what better place to learn how to respond in a Godly manner than in an office where you get practice every day? I mean, I can SAY they're fired, but God knows I'm not going anywhere before I have somewhere to go to, and He can drag that process out as long as He needs to.

My natural tendency is to respond in one of two ways - get angry, or run away. And the problem is that it seems the negativity has been pursuing me lately, so I've been unable to run away and been getting angry. But see... you can control the people you allow to be in your social life and influence your thoughts in that sense ("equally yoked" should be applied to more relationships than marriage), but there are any number of situations, especially at work, where you have no control over whether people will bring hate into your day. And we NEED to have a response ready.

I kept trying to come up with a mantra of sorts - something to say to myself when the complaining starts so that I can start off on the right track rather than getting derailed and having to do damage control for the next hour. Never did come up with anything. Nothing at all. But considering the situation in this light made all the difference in the world to my day - just acknowledging my part in the problem. First really good day I've had at work in some time.

Now. Do I want to continue to work long term for a boss who overlooks problems because he's too busy with the bottom line and bad with confrontation, under a supervisor with poor people skills who plays favorites and is also bad with confrontation, with a co-worker who makes huge errors and (successfully!) distracts from them by screaming about petty mistakes others have made (which, by the way, would not have happened if she'd actually taught us how to do the task properly to begin with) and loves confrontation while being condescending, among people who are miserably content to be discontent? Not really. Not when it's so blatantly obvious that the problem would virtually solve itself with the replacement of one employee and the hiring of a supervisor who actually has skills in the field. But regardless of any other yet unknown factors, if I can't learn to respond humbly and graciously in such difficult circumstances, I feel certain I'll be here a while. Let's get crackin'.