Badly Needed: God's Grace

Two people who actually know me [in real life] have stated that they miss reading posts about "me". I think I've been subconsciously hiding behind photography for over a year, so I think I'll give it a shot today.

Warning: some of it is not pretty.

I'm still loving the worship at St. Matthias, despite the fact that our beloved priest was forced to retire early due to his wife's Alzheimer's, and there is one parishioner who openly dislikes me. Recent case in point: last Sunday when I offered to help clean up after a function I had no idea where to start, so as "Mrs. Tortoise" walked by I asked her what task I should do.

She tossed out the following words rather rudely as she scurried by, "Go ask someone in the kitchen; they'll help you."

I wanted to shout in front of everyone, "WHAT DID I DO TO YOU?!" For this was not the first instance I was on the receiving end of her being rude to me or worse, being completely ignored.

Remember Evelyn Couch, the character in Fried Green Tomatoes? The scene in the grocery store parking lot where she's carrying all her bags to the car and a young punk slams into her, knocking all her groceries to the ground? That's what I felt like in the Great Hall of our church, like timid Evelyn Couch whimpering, "Why are you being so mean to me?"

Like the bully in the store parking lot "Mrs. Tortoise" didn't even try to hide her disdain. I felt hurt, angry, and rejected. There she is, politely having discussions with other people, but never once has she introduced herself or even smiled at me. Oh, there was that one time that I forced her to, when I made eye contact and smiled at HER in front of others. She replied with one of those tense, fake smiles...you've seen 'em; lips stretched straight across in a tight line, eyes completely devoid of friendliness.

She might as well have flipped me off with that pathetic effort.

After I acknowledged the hurt that her cavalier response to my question caused, I became angry. I wanted to go up to her face--which is strikingly similar to a turtle that ate a sour apple--and inform her that she is not being very Christian.

Yes, my turtle comment is blatantly unchristian.

So there it is: my ugly side. I am aware and working very hard to rectify it. I'm a pretty nice person unless you hurt me for no good reason. In my youth I would have said what I thought about her to her face without stopping to think. These days I still have the ugly thoughts, but at least I stop and think about the consequences before I open my mouth. Now that I'm 50, I'm pretty good at the practice, but sometimes I just want to let it fly...it would feel so good, wouldn't it? Yeah, for about 5 seconds. :/

After I think of several different ways to confront her, The Lord's Prayer comes to mind (forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us) reminding me that no one is perfect (even though some may think they are just because they are polishing the marble altar down to a glare-inducing shine), and I ask God for grace.

And I try to concentrate on the people who seem to like me.

"Mrs. Tortoise" and people like her really make me want to stay home on Sunday mornings. But the worship at St. Matthias is so beautiful I've decided that one sour apple will not keep me away.

So I continue to ask for God's grace.

It's become a mantra.

Have you ever encountered such a situation in church? If so, how did you handle it? Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

I'm a Widow

I really dread this time of year, and by the photo, I think you can guess why. FOOTBALL! It's televised constantly! OMG. If I watched HGTV as much as Double D watches football, I would probably be served divorce papers before the next season of Design Star. He even watches high school football!

I will watch LSU play, and if I am in the mood, the New Orleans Saints. Beyond that, I've HAD IT UP TO HERE ALREADY!

Everything about it inflames me, setting my nerves on edge. The boring announcers, the beer commercials, the penalties, time-outs, replays, etc. In my mind these are simply delays which keep a game on the air for an agonizing THREE HOURS at a time! And that's just ONE game!

Let's discuss the penalties for a moment because they annoy me the most. I maintain that Congress was somehow involved in the development of this game because there is a penalty for every frickin' thing! I understand why many of them are in place, but some of these refs throw a flag down if a player farts. And in college, you can't celebrate a touchdown. Not even with a finger pointed toward heaven, or there's a penalty. What's that about? For tough guys they sure are sensitive if they can't take it when the other team scores. What a crock of BS!

Sorry for all the exclamation points. I had to get that off my chest. Do I feel any better? No, because I can hear the annoying sounds wafting upstairs to my office as I type this.

We have three HDTVs in the house, but the biggest, best one is downstairs in the living room, which is where Double D wants to park himself from August to the end of January. Enormous guilt comes over me if I want to watch something else when there's a game on. And when isn't there one on? With 200+ channels, there is a game being played somewhere. Sometimes Double D will sense my fuse about to blow and will watch upstairs on the 36" screen, but the whole time I'm feeling terrible because I know he is not getting the full effect as he would with the 52" Samsung. The very TV I convinced him we needed last year in order to ditch the other 55" dinosaur model that took up half the living room.

Is this my punishment? Six months of football? Seems a steep price to pay. Well, I only have a few more weeks to go. Will my nerves survive? Stay tuned.

Noreen

I have a thorn in my side at work and her name is Noreen (not her real name). She is my main contact at one of our major suppliers, so when I am sending custom orders, she needs just enough acumen to read the instructions on my purchase orders and get the parts into production. You'd think this was a pretty simple task, but for Noreen, I might as well be asking her to map the human genome or balance the federal budget.

I don't want to come across as cruel, but facts are facts: Noreen is about as alert and intelligent as a box of rusty nails. When her stupidity surfaced during our first point of contact, I tried to be nice about it and not make her feel inferior by pointing out the obvious answers to her questions, typed neatly on our faxed purchase order. Right there in black and white.

Then there was a fleeting thought that I must not be communicating properly. Maybe it's me. But not having this problem with other suppliers, I quickly came to the conclusion that it's not me, IT'S HER. And that sort of realization wore my nerves down to a frazzled mass of tangled vessels, ready to explode at any given moment.

After months of dealing with Noreen I was through with being nice. I got to a point where I wanted her to feel my pain. I wanted to shove her idiocy right back down her own throat with force. My frustration levels were off the chart. In 21 years I have never encountered such daftness. So I stopped being nice and said things like:

"Just get it done, Noreen."

"I don't have time to explain every little detail to you, Noreen."

"Read the purchase order, Noreen."

"Look at the previous order, Noreen."

"It's right there on the order. Why are you asking me?" (after which I would read the answer to her inane question aloud from the PO)

"Whatever, Noreen. I'm tired of explaining this to you. We just talked about this yesterday. Do you not remember our conversation?" (she never remembered our previous conversations)

"Figure it out, Noreen."

These things were all said in very clipped, abrupt tones. Oh, and the curse words I wanted to spew were pushed way down into the depths of my belly. I'd pray they would stay buried there and not surface like projectile vomiting or a sudden case of Turette's. I'd be damned if Noreen was going to do me in after 21 years in this job, using her mind-numbing ignorance like a machete, chopping feverishly on my frayed nerves.

One day something came over me. Perhaps it was the realization that being blunt and to the point wasn't getting through, or maybe the vein that was throbbing in the side of my neck started to become worrisome, ready to burst through and cause a fatal heart attack. No way was Noreen getting the best of me, nor would she claim responsibility for putting me in the grave. Dear God, no, don't let it be Noreen.

So I changed tactics. I decided to be exceptionally nice. Not fake nice, but out of a place of true compassion. Perhaps with genuine patience and understanding I could make the situation better. For both of us. I would no longer point out obvious inconsistencies in her statements or thrash her for overlooking crucial details. It was difficult beyond belief and my tongue was sore from biting it. I patiently walked her through orders, politely answering her questions. And I'm proud to say it wasn't in a condescending way.

Niceness toward Noreen felt foreign and forced at first, but over the weeks, surprisingly, it came more naturally. In turn she also became nicer and more accommodating. She actually did me a favor today, which saved my company $150. Score! I win!

Did my diplomacy make Noreen any smarter? No. Did it make her remember things she had just told me the day before, but can't remember today? No. Did she suddenly figure out how to read our orders and process them without incident? No. Did my nicety make that vein stop throbbing in my neck? It's easing. Baby steps.

I think I'm on to something here. Never give up on someone. Remember that everyone is not at the same place in life — intellectually, emotionally, and physically — that you are. What I learned is that even when you don't feel like being gracious, if you try your best to put it into practice anyway, it makes life exceedingly more pleasant.

After 2 years of dealing with Noreen, it's doubtful that I will ever write her a recommendation letter or suggest to her superior that she receive a promotion, but I have created a little bubble of peace around us, fragile though it may be, and that's enough. I hope to carry this lesson into other areas of my life.

Peace and love,
Louisiana Belle

Phone from Hell

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you all know that I love technology. I embrace it even. I think my gadget-buying spree back in the spring proves that. The Polycom SoundPoint IP 650, however, is my first technological nemesis. From what I can gather online, this is supposed to be the latest, greatest thing to hit small businesses since computers, probably. After giving it my all the last 2 weeks, I've come to the conclusion that it's a complicated piece of crap. Either that, or Apple's intuitive interface for the iPhone, iPod Touch, and iMac has spoiled me rotten.

When a call came in on the old phone for my boss, all I had to do was press the HOLD button, intercom him and say something like, "It's Bob Vance from Vance Refrigeration on line 1." If he wanted to take the call, he'd thank me and press the blinking button. If he didn't want it, I would take a message. Yeah, the message taking part was a pain, so I was really looking forward to the promise of the PSPIP 650 because it was sold as the ability of transferring those pesky calls straight to voice mail.

Sounds simple enough, right? So NOT simple. When a call comes in and I hit the TRANSFER key a recording comes on and tells me I am unauthorized to do so. If I put the caller on hold, it will not show as a blinking line on my boss' phone. Some of the phones in our office can intercom hands-free, others cannot. Mine is in the no intercom category, naturally. There is also no way to tell if my boss is busy on another line. Just basic stuff you need to know or be able to do for simple phone routing. This system is anything but simple.

Today I had the solicitor from Let Me Pester the Hell Out of You Corp. who would not give up trying to get through to my boss. Because I couldn't transfer her, I had to physically walk into his office and tell him who was on the phone. His response? "Not interested." So I told her he was busy. She asked for voice mail. I gave the TRANSFER key a try. It didn't work so I decided to just hang up on her. With most solicitors this is a very effective tactic. She called back.

The phone does have one awesome thing that our other phone didn't have: caller ID. So when she called back the screen gave me the following options: ANSWER • REJECT • IGNORE. I chose REJECT. In theory, a rejected call is supposed to go straight to voice mail. Not my phone, oh no. It rang to another phone outside my office. I ran to that phone and hit IGNORE. I returned to my desk and she rang again. This went on two more times. I thought, 'well, at least I'm getting a little aerobics in'. There was quiet for about 5 minutes and I thought I had finally gotten the best of her.

Well, Bertha from Let Me Pester the Hell Out of You Corp. was having none of this runaround, so she called back, only my screen displayed "Anonymous". I answered the phone all cheerful, suspecting it might be her, and Bertha informs me, rather nicely, that she has been hung up on three times and she needs to talk to Mr. W. I explained that we had a new phone system and I'm very sorry but it appears our voice mail transfer is not working so I will have to take a message. This woman wasted all my time (and hers) to let my boss know about an upcoming Builders and Contractors Expo going on in our area. I felt like shoving my handset down her throat. And I am not a violent person.

I Am No Mrs. Rogers

We are not on friendly terms with the neighbors on each side of us, which is not totally our fault. Let me give you a little history.

We share part of our fence with one of the neighbors, so two years ago when it was time to replace it, we told the fence guy that we wanted the pickets placed on the other side of the posts. Instead of the posts being outside, we wanted them inside our yard. On the day of installation, when the neighbors realized that the pickets were going to be on their side, they threw a hissy fit, claiming they would be losing 3" of yard. My guy called me at work and said the neighbors are acting like jerks and that they refused permission to nail the slats from their side unless we put them the other way. We ended up putting the slats on our side just to keep the peace. They have not spoken to us since. Now, WE paid for a brand new fence which helped the majority of HIS property since it ran along the entire side of HIS house, we gave him HIS way, and now he's mad at US. Go figure.

The neighbors on the other side caused a dangerous problem when they started using our side yard as an ashtray. Seriously, they would flick their cigarettes over the fence into our yard, sometimes in dry grass. Who does this?! Well, you can imagine how worried we were that there would be a fire someday. (Actually, we did have to knock on their door once to tell them their trash can was on fire, so you can see how we viewed them as careless, as well as inconsiderate). This cigarette flicking went on for a couple of months when we finally had enough. DD marched over as they were sitting outside and told them to put their butts out elsewhere, using a very harsh tone. That was 10 years ago and we have not seen a cigarette butt since. That was also the end of any friendly relations.

Back to the present.

Yesterday, I was sitting on the back patio, waiting for the dogs to finish their business when the neighbor kids started riding their bikes up and down our driveway. No big deal, right? Our driveway is one of the longer ones and I thought riding bikes on it was pretty harmless. The dogs were barking nonstop, taking longer to do their thing, but I was still cool with it.

Next thing I knew I heard one little boy say, "Hey, watch this!" They pedaled really fast up the drive and then slammed on the brakes, creating a skid sound. It took a couple of times before I figured out what they were doing. I threw open the back gate and they flew off in different directions. The little brats left skid marks all over my driveway.

Well, I was beyond pissed. I was determined to find those rascals. After huffing and puffing, going back and forth, I finally found one of them:

Me: Are you the one leaving skid marks on my driveway?

Boy: It was my friend. (surprise!)

Me: Well, do you know it is not very nice to leave black marks on people's driveways?

Boy: Yes ma'am.

Me: I don't EVER want to see you on my driveway AGAIN. Do you understand me?

Boy: Yes ma'am.

After I calmed down, I thought, you stupid woman! Now they're going to find it a challenge to see what they can get away with around the house. I'm going to drive up from work one day and find graffiti painted all over my fence, or worse. Oh, what have I done? I never thought I would turn into a raging neighborhood witch.

Was there a better way to handle the situation? Should I have been cool with them leaving black marks all over my driveway? Was I justified in tracking the boys down?

I must add that when I left the house this morning, it looked like someone had tried to scrub the skid marks off because they were very faint. I hope that's a good sign.