The Gift

I had a horrible day at work tonight.  Horrible.  I think that it was actually so bad that horrible doesn't even begin to describe it.  And it started from the moment I walked in the door. Now, this is really saying something because, as some of you know, I worked in the airline industry for 10 years.  In those 10 years, I had my share of delays.  Like 24 hour delays with 300 passengers who were on their way to Cuba before the aircraft decided to crap out, and spent 6 hours in an enclosed space before it was determined that the aircraft was indeed broken.  I'm pretty sure I don't need to explain this, but 300 people who were expecting to be in Cuba, but instead are spending the night in the airport...well, lets just say they can be a little grumpy.  Ya, today...was worse.

It all began with an argument with an employee.  Asked him to do a task, simple enough (or so I thought, but what do I know...I'm just the supervisor...) He thought said task was dumb, or too much work, or I don't know what, and pretended to do it.  I watched him pretend to do it, then asked him what part of the instruction he didn't understand, so in an attempt to infuriate me further he stared me down as he deliberately did the bare minimum of the request.  Then he yelled.  I don't like yelling.  I avoid conflict at all costs.  Truly I do.  However, you make me look like a fool in front of my employees and customs officials inspecting the mail....I take the challenge.  And I win.  I always win.

Not even 10 minutes later, an employee (thankfully a different one) takes a huge (yet surprisingly aerodynamic) parcel  and throws it at another (unsuspecting) employee and narrowly misses his head.  Conflict number two and I haven't even been there for half an hour.

"Dude,"  I say. "Not cool." 

To which he responds, "What?  Not cool that I missed?" 

*SIGH* (oh, for clarification...this would be my sigh...)  "Was that your intention?  To hit him?" 

"Uh, no..." grin is gone from his face. 

"Okay, so here's the deal....you will not throw mail.  And you will not try to hit co-workers.  You do it again and you're going home."  Just so everyone is on the same page here...no, I do not work in a sweat shop with children.  These are adults. 

Fast forward through the night...pull two licences for 'unsafe' forklift driving.  Inadvertantly lie (which if you don't mean to lie, is it really a lie?  Or a miscommunication?) to an employee and then have to fess up.  Oh, and then there's this little thing called MAIL which is ever increasing in volume as we lead up to Christmas and I was just ready to...well, I don't know.   I went outside to get some fresh air(and by fresh air, I mean I had a cigarette.)  I contemplated standing in front of a bus, but there was no driver so I could have been there for a while.  And it was cold.  So I went inside. 

All this, and a last minute rush to get the end of shift paperwork completed, when an employee on the next shift comes over and begins talking to me. 

"Did you get to enjoy the sun today?"

"A lil"  I mutter, thinking 'can't you see I'm busy here??????!?!?!?'

"Wasn't it a wonderful gift?"

Full stop.

Wow. 

In November, we've had record rainfall...which for Vancouver is saying a whole lot.  It's rained every day for what feels like a year.  I was beginning to understand how Noah felt.  Just when we thought we were all going to trade our cars in for canoes, the sun came out.  And it's been out for two glorious days.  It is a gift, a fabulous gift.  And I almost forgot to be thankful.

So, I don't know how your day was today.  But if it was anything like mine, all I have to say is this...

"Wasn't it a wonderful gift?"