Update

September:
Maggie encountered a virus the first week of school.  She starts to cough, and the coughing causes asthma problems, which results in more coughing, which exacerbates the asthma, and thus goes the cycle.  So she coughed her way through the month, missing most choir practices, a few church services, and several days of school.

Maggie applied for a part-time fast-food job not far from the house.  It seemed that they were interested in finding a spot for her.   Because they had just hired lots of newbies, they said they wanted to hold off for Mag until the end of October.  So she'll need to be getting in contact with them again soon.

Gary and I attended the symposium at the St Louis seminary.  Topic was catechesis, and we at CCA have some familiarity with the subject.  It took a huge amount of work to prepare for the trip.  Deacon had a truck when he went on trips; we have a compact car.  Deacon usually had several tables; we had one 6' table.  Gary wanted a brochure to hand out.  There was a lot of rethinking of how the CCA could be represented.  Then there was the loading, the trip, and the unpacking.  The trip consumed much of my September.


October:
Gary's dad died.  He had been failing slowly over the last year.  But as he quit eating, he became much weaker.  (Or maybe it's the weakness which makes a person quit eating?)  When Gary visited early in September, his dad was already becoming disinterested in this life.  When we visited as we traveled to St Louis, we figured he couldn't continue very long as he was.  He is baptized, and we were thankful that the pastor could be with him as he lay dying.  (Dad's kids were called and told, "Come now," but the distance meant that they didn't make it in time for a final goodbye.)

Most of the grandkids were able to attend the funeral.  There's that weird thing about funerals: in the midst of mourning, there's the joy of family togetherness and fun.

About a week after we returned from the funeral, we headed out for a beautiful drive to Minnesota, enjoying the fall colors.  We attended a most-awesome wedding and saw loads of friends.  And we visited with Paul, Mandy, and baby Henry (who seems to remember me ... and like me ... even though this was only the fifth time I'd seen him).  Paul told us how his new job is going and helped us understand the pattern of his [somewhat odd] work schedule.

The secretary at church is currently out on medical leave.  Several of us are dividing up her responsibilities, taking different days to man the office.  I have bulletin-prep day.  Add to that the other projects (secretarial, CCA, and my usual volunteer tasks) and I've been volunteering at church about 30 hours a week since we returned from St Louis.  No wonder the house is messy, the grass long, and the garage not yet ready for winter.  A few of the big pressing projects are now completed.  So things should be less stressful starting next week.

Maggie and I took one day this week to tackle some projects.  She cleaned bathrooms and living room and washed some windows.  I vacuumed the car, washed all the window-screens, and scrubbed the eaves which were starting to mildew.  Sore muscles the next day.  But boy, it feels good to start catching up on some of those projects that have been delayed since my hospitalization over two years ago.  I have my fingers crossed, hoping we can finish up the most critical pre-winter outdoor jobs this weekend.

This Is "Retirement"?

Yesterday was the first day I Should Have Been At Work, but wasn't.  (No, I haven't fully quit yet.  I'm still taking some short shifts until they replace at least one of the open positions at my branch.)

Such conflicting emotions!

Instead of doing one of a gazillion things on my After-I-Quit-Work to-do list, I spent the day with my daughter and newborn granddaughter.  Rachel ended up in the emergency room this weekend.  The surgeons removed a troublesome organ.  They sent her home on narcotics.  I spent a couple of days there, taking care of things that she simply couldn't.  While running some errands Tuesday morning, I wondered about certain customers, whether they'd come in yet.  I wondered how my co-workers were keeping up with the work, whether it was a busy day or a boring day, wondered who was subbing for me, etc.  And that's when it hit me.  Tuesday would have been loads easier physically and mentally if I had been at work instead of tending to family needs.  And yet ... working Tuesday would have been awful as my mind and heart would have been preoccupied with my babies and grandbabies, wanting to be there to help but unable.

Today I planned to spend a shorter amount of time with Rachel and Lizzy.  Instead the day was spent helping Katie get her car functional again.

Nature abhors a vacuum.

See what price my daughters pay when I make a "vacuum" of my calendar?  (Well.  Okay.  Not a vacuum.  But cleared out a little bit.)  It makes me wonder if I should protect my kids by going back to work!

Rachel says God had it all worked out.  She had a tiny baby ... and that baby is big enough to be safe/healthy but small enough to be carried by post-surgery mommy.  Rachel had been over-producing milk, so there was plenty in the freezer for Baby to live on while Mommy couldn't feed her.  And Nanna didn't have to be at work and could be butting in, soaking up some baby-snuggles between washing dishes and stuff like that.  I guess, if you're going to toss an emergency surgery into life, this probably was a darn-tootin' easy way to go about it.

Recent Events

Elizabeth's arrival is the best of the recent events.  But, oh!, I do wish I had the strength and endurance to go help more, visit more, snuggle more. 

Gary's hungry.  He's having some health problems that require [deep serious voice--] Dietary Changes.  Right now it seems like there's nothing he can eat but veggie salads.  Nothing with sticking-power.  Yeah, but how much of that is real, and how much is scientists and chemists trying to figure out the art of medicine?  Once he gets the pain under control, I suppose then we can begin experimenting.  I'm wondering: if we fix guts, might the rest of the body straighten out too?

Sister, brother, and I divided up most of the belongings of my mom's house.  I've heard stories from other families about what happens when a parent dies.  Oh my goodness -- I am so thankful that we can get along and be nice to each other!

Maggie and I have an appointment coming up at Easter Seals to see if they have any programs that might benefit her. 

Between Gary, Maggie, Rachel, and me, it seems like we're seeing doctors or making appointments or receiving test results practically every day.  My head is swimming. 

Pretty soon I will be leaving my job.  Working and homeschooling and healing-from-stroke was at the utter limits of what I could do.  There was no margin.  Mom' death and helping with settling things just didn't/won't fit in.  So something has to go.  Since Maggie's not expendable, and since I have no magic wand to [poof] achieve full healing from my brain injury, the job is the only thing that I can take a break from.  I will miss it.  I will miss some of the customers.  I will miss the paycheck.  But mostly I will miss the nice feeling of having finished a task completely and correctly.  I keep reassuring myself that I can always reapply for the job when some of these family matters are wrapped up.

Google tells me that the European Union has instituted new rules for cookies on websites.  That means bloggers must inform readers about cookies and obtain consent.  I don't know how to do that!  And I don't have the time or brain power to bother with figuring it out right now.  So my counter (which is, I think, the only cookie I have) had to go bye-bye.  If you leave an anonymous comment, please sign something on the bottom so I know who you are, so I can allow the comment to go through.  (You could use initials, or first name plus last initial, or "Friend in Janesville," etc.)  It's getting tempting to just shut-down the blog or make it private (readers by invitation only).  But I'd need to save a lot of information first, including printing out recipes.  And that too is too much work right now. 

Katie, Maggie, and I watched "Pride and Prejudice" at APT last weekend.  Sarah Day does such a great job with fussy, busybody women-characters!  And Marcus Truschinski is the best Mr Darcy I ever saw.  

I'm working on lacto-fermenting veggies.   The corn relish was made with fresh-picked corn from the farm.  I made it a few years ago, and it was my favorite pickled recipe.  It's great to make another batch.  I should get my hands on some more corn while it's still available.  The pickle-batch I set aside today was sauerkraut.  Fresh, unheated sauerkraut is so much yummier than the cooked/canned soft kind.  I think broccoli slaw may be my next attempt.  There are so many possibilities that sound good.  And non-vinegar pickles are so much tastier ... as well as being super-healthy.

Defined by Your Job?

A job is a significant part of our lives.  It is where we spend most of our waking hours.  It is a place where we meet people and form cooperative relationships.  It is a place where we can be part of a team, working with others for a common purpose.  It is a place where we form friendships and social networks.  It is an opportunity, hopefully, to identify with a respected organization and its contribution to the community.  Many of us define ourselves by our careers.  A job or career is a source of self-esteem, extrinsic and intrinsic reward, and independence.  A job is the most visible and definitive way one take his or her rightful place in the community.

The Complete Guide to Creating 

a Special Needs Life Plan, p 109

by Hal Wright

So much of this assertion is true.

And yet, I find it disturbing that JOB (not family and not what happens at church) is taken for granted as what defines us.  No wonder stay-at-home moms have "no worth" in the eyes of American society.

Back to Work

Monday was my first day back at my paid-job.  Instead of a 10-hour day, my supervisors started me on 4-hour days.  By closing time, I wasn't as tired as I'd expected.  I was, however, surprised that my arachnoiditis flared up as badly as it did.

In spring I hadn't planned to take off time for the wedding this weekend.  But after my hospital trip, I can't push myself and cram loads of activities into a day, thinking, "Oh, it'll work out; this is important; I'll just take it easy the next week."  So I worked yesterday instead.  That way Friday has "only" the rehearsal dinner, and Saturday has "only" the wedding.   After two hours at work, again, the arachnoiditis began to flare up.  I took pain-killers before work and a different pain-killer two hours into my shift.  It still hurt.  This better improve.  If I have to take enough pain-killer to overcome the pain, I'm going to be too doped up to count money. 

Now to figure out:  Does "tiredness" necessarily show itself as sleepiness and a weariness with a desire to lie down?  Or might "tiredness" manifest itself as nerve pain, headaches, throbbing, and a rash?

I keep reminding myself that I have been healing and improving rapidly.  Maybe the nerve pain and the tiredness will improve right along with everything else.  I ought not expect that my body's response to my job will be the same in 3-4 weeks as it is now.

As for doing the job itself, things are fine.  I remember nearly everything.  The tricky parts are the new procedures that developed while I was gone, that everyone else took in stride a bit at a time so that they don't realize, "Hey, Susan, we do that differently now" until I do it the old way.  But those will be worked out a bit at a time until I'm up-to-speed.

It's nice to see old customers, especially when the "regulars" missed me.

Back to Work

A full year to recuperate.  That's what the doctors and therapists kept telling me as I progressed speedily in my abilities. "Slow down; don't overdo," they kept reminding.  Although I can do almost everything I could do before, I now realize I can't do very much of any of those things.  I wear out easily.  I slept 10.5 hours last night.  When Katie dropped by today, she was surprised by how clean the house was and that the laundry was caught up.  [light bulb click]  No wonder I was too tired to accomplish anything the last couple of days; I was worn out from the first half of the week.

When I found out that another part-time position would be opening at work, I adjusted my mind to taking that position while my boss filled my position.  That would've meant I had until late September before I had to be ready to work.  Recently that goal seemed perfectly doable; probably in mid-September it would've seemed intimidating.  After talking with bosses this week, it looks like I'll be returning to my job much sooner.  As in, a week or so.  For now, it will be only half-days.  And my boss made it very plain that he doesn't want me to get worn out so that the job interferes with my healing ... or even that it makes me consider quitting.  They are bending over backwards to help me keep my job.

And I'm terribly grateful.
Especially because I much prefer my current schedule to the other option.

But right now I'm also a bit hesitant about going back to work already.

It'll be fine.
It'll be fine.
It'll be fine.

I just have to readjust my mind away from all those books Maggie and I were going to read, and movies I was going to watch, and piddly projects I was going to tick off the list, over the next 2-3 months.  Sleep, however, will stay near the top of the Priorities List.


(PS to kids: I'm going to need some chauffeuring for a few weeks.  Andrew can take the first week.  But I'll need at least two more weeks of rides before I'm eligible to drive.)

Gary's Award

for QUALITY work

Toward Perfection

Admit it.  We're two-faced about perfectionism.  We say it's bad for us.  We say it's stressful.  We say, "Well, nobody can be perfect."  And yet, if we're not compelling ourselves to be perfect, we've got those teachers and bosses pushing us toward being perfect, always setting the goals higher and higher.  Once we reach the first goal, then a new goal is set.  There's no contentment, no resting, in a job well done.  Or in significant improvement.

Why is it, the closer we get to perfection, the more we're aware of our imperfection?  A kid who scores C's and B's on his tests won't flip out when he sees "C-" on his test.  But the kid who earns A's will freak over a B.  And the kid who scores 99% will be upset over a "lousy" grade like 96%.  Same thing at work.  The goal for the team is to eliminate backlogged work.  But no matter how much they improve over the year, no matter how many cases they resolve, it's never enough -- it's never perfect.  But the drive for it to be perfect is more compelling when the goal isn't as far out of reach. 

The closer we get to perfection, the more we yearn to have it.

With regard to civic righteousness, striving for perfection can drive a person bonkers and hike his blood pressure.  But with regard to religion, it can become damning if we determine that more effort on our part can get us to where we measure up.

Me

It so happens that, due to the holiday and scheduling flukes, I ended up being off work for nearly the whole week.  My jobless week included church, a trip to visit my mom, lots of tomatoes and canning and cooking, Bible class, laundry, and some schoolwork with Maggie.  And about 20 hours before I was due to clock-in at work again, I realized:

I feel like myself again.  

I have this sense that "me" is back.

I wish I could do something about that.
Thank God I could be a stay-at-home mom and housewife as long as I did.

Hiring the Good Employees

I am not the manager.  I am not the supervisor.  But I've seen quite a few tellers come and go during the months I've spent at my job.  Some went on to promotions.  Some quit.  Some lost their job.  And I've noticed a pattern.

There is an indefinable, unpinpointable characteristic that distinguishes the good employees from the bad.  And it's got something to do with compassion for others. 

Employees can put on a show about being polite, but for some of them the politeness comes with relatively little effort because of the concern they have for helping the other guy.

Employees can be hard workers because they know the boss will smile upon them for it, but if their hard work is done only to earn the boss's favor, it's hard to keep up the effort when he's not looking.   Others work hard because it's part of their desire to help their customers and their co-workers. 

Employees can complain behind the backs of the nasty customers, but then their crabby rebuttals [spoken surreptitiously to co-workers] affect their attitude so that it oozes out around the edges to all the customers.  Others understand that a rude customer may be "rude" simply because she didn't hear the cheery greeting to give a pleasant response, or because something tragic is going on his life.

Most people who are looking for jobs these days must apply online.  Sometimes hundreds of people apply for a handful of jobs.  There is no way for an employer to get that "feel" for what the prospective employee is like, to assess those indefinable "vibes."  And there is no way for the guy who's job-hunting to be able to "sell" himself on the basis of that most-important quality.  That's hard for the guy who needs a job.  But it's also a difficulty for the person who's doing the hiring.  I'm beginning more and more to think that, if I'm ever in a position of making hiring-decisions, my gut-level intuition should have a lot more clout than my reason and logic.

Making Mistakes

I think it might be worse to watch somebody else make a mistake at work than to botch it myself.

Almost half of our tellers are new in June or July.  Two were on their own for the first time this week.  The person I was working with today is such a sweetie.  It was really busy.  And, as luck would have it, she ended up with her drawer being off.  She hadn't made a big error, but it was enough to trouble her.  I wanted so much to hug her and assure her.  I wanted to make it all better for her.  I remember those mistakes happening all-too-frequently when I was new.  I wished that things had gone differently during the morning; I wondered if there was something I could have done to be more helpful to her.  I feel awful that she was off, and it wasn't even my mistake.

When I was new, they kept telling me, "Everybody makes mistakes."  That didn't make it any better at the time.  But now that I've been there for a while, and I can see what the new girl is going through,  it's true: everybody does make mistakes when they're learning!

When I was new, they kept assuring me that I would learn from my mistakes.  I didn't like that.  I knew it was true.  But I hated it.  In fact, I still remember my second-grade teacher giving us a homework assignment to come up with a list of homonyms.  I of course, in overdrive, came up with a list of not 10 or 20, but nearly 100.  My list included "our" and "are" as homonyms.  It was wrong!  [gasp]  [By the way, Teacher didn't listen to how folks in that section of Illinois pronounced "are" and "our."]  I still remember being WRONG about that.  Of course, Mr Choir Director appreciates that because I make sure to sing "our" with the correct pronunciation.  And sometimes I edit his writing, correcting the same mistake (because he was raised amongst people with the same accent).  All because of my mortification that my second-grade teacher caught me being WRONG.

During my senior year when I was taking a programming class, my computer program didn't run as it was supposed to.  I couldn't figure out what was wrong.   I went to the prof.  He asked me what I'd done to debug the program.  "What?  What do you mean, 'debug the program'?"  He asked me what I'd done before, when my programs hadn't run properly.  I was stunned.  They'd never not-run before.  I was nearing the end of my computer-science major, and I had never debugged a program.  I'd always gotten it right from the get-go.  That's not actually a good way to learn to solve problems, eh?

I am still stunned by the parable of the lost sheep.  For decades I had wondered about how there is "more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 just persons who need no repentance."   God is not like me.  I would much rather have my kids obey me than to screw up and break things and be sassy and then ask for forgiveness.  I don't understand this verse: how can God delight in repentance more than He delights in so much obedience that there's no need for repentance?!  I mean, He certainly wants us to obey and do what is right!  But this verse -- there is more joy in heaven.... 

I don't like mistakes.
I like to be right.
I like to do things the right way so that there's no need to fix it.
I want so desperately to comfort those who are grieving
over their inability to do the job perfectly.
I know we learn from our mistakes.

I still don't like mistakes.

Maybe I'll get it straightened out in my mind before I die.

The Nice Thing about My Job

My real work --the work at home-- is never-ending.  It's nigh onto impossible to catch up on the cooking, the cleaning, the homeschooling, the laundry, the repairs, the errands, the gardening.  Sometimes I'm caught up, as it were, in one of those areas.  But never all of them.  Never even most of them.  Oh, let's get real, I can't even remember being pretty much up-to-current in more than two of those things at once.  That gets wearying.

The easy thing about going away to a job is that it's clear-cut.  You go punch the time clock.  You do your work.  Sometimes there you get everything done.  [gasp!]  And then you might be able to twiddle your thumbs or surreptitiously flip through a magazine until the next customer arrives and you snap back to efficiency again. And at the end of the day, when you're done, you're actually done.

So after a week of going to my paid-job every day, now that I'm home again, I'm overwhelmed.  Where to start?! It's especially hard to make decisions and to get motivated when you're being overwhelmed by some other things in life.  And come the end of the day, even if I zip and zap and work like a maniac, the undone items on the to-do lists will still stretch before me. 

So have any of you found solutions to this?  How do you live with the perpetual knowledge that you're not doing what needs to be done?  Or is the only real solution to reduce the amount of jobs you're trying to do?  (Such as ditching the garden or quitting the job or hiring a maid?)

Promotion

Along came the perfect job for Gary.  He's tried for other promotions and not gotten them.  But the person who was promoted in those instances really was the better guy for the job. 

But this job.  This was tailor-made for Gary.  Several co-workers who saw the job posted told him, "That's got your name written all over it."  The position was supposed to be filled immediately.  Gary applied.  Two months dragged by.  Finally someone else applied.  And we learned the day before we left on vacation that this other person was chosen for the promotion.

It makes you wonder what God has planned, up there around the bend, where we can't see yet.

Yesterday's Tally

One batch of potato salad.
Two batches of granola.
One large batch of applesauce-oat muffins.
One batch of Katie-&-Zoe-safe muffins.
One batch of home-made caramels.
One batch of kombucha.

To the farm to buy milk.
To the bank's night deposit for a drop-off.
To the grocery store to nab this week's loss leaders.
Three loads of laundry.
Watering the garden.
Weeding more of the strawberry patch.
Prep work for a tray of baklava.
Prep work for two batches of Glenda's Most Evil Dessert.
Our first attempt at home-made mozzarella. 

And because of all that, I washed dishes eight times.

Today I go to "work."  That's the place where I get paid ... and where I rest up from my so-called day off.

Being an Interesting Person

I imagine that I used to be an interesting person. You may disagree with this, but hey, at least some people used to find me interesting!  It's become clear to me, however, in the last several months that I'm no longer interesting. (At least, not to most people.)  

Not long ago, a friend posted a link to an article about How To Be More Interesting (page 1) and (page 2).  It reflected some of my ruminations.

First, interesting people have ideas.  They're not bland.  They're not conformists.  They have opinions.  They're engaged in life. 

Second, the people around them care to listen to those ideas and opinions. 

And that's what's changed for me. 

If I'm around people who are interested in the Packers' season, they're going to find me boring.  I don't care who the coach is, or what player has been benched, or which team they're playing next.  

I used to be interesting when I hung out with people who cared about the things I cared about: cooking, raising kids, gardens, music, theology, Shakespeare plays, homeschool curriculum, politics, alternative medicine.  If I spend a lot of time with people who don't care diddly about these things, then they're going to find me boring.  What do I have to talk about?  What are my ideas?  People who aren't interested in those topics anyway sure aren't going to care what I think of an already-boring-to-them subject.

I used to be interesting when I wasn't afraid to express my opinions.  The old maxim about not discussing religion and politics makes it easier to get along with co-workers and neighbors.  But if religion and politics are what you think about, care about, talk about, keeping your lip zipped makes you appear boring.

I used to be interesting when I had time to read, to watch movies, to be learning all sorts of cool stuff alongside my kids.  I was filling up my head with nifty ideas, and we'd all be discussing those things as we sat around the table or ran errands or did chores.  Now I just try to keep up with the basics.

Gary's trying to stay up on sports so that he can interact with folks.  It's a great plan.  I don't have the time and energy to delve into that yet.  Maybe someday.  But for now, I will be content with being boring ... except for those dear times when I can be with people whom I find to be interesting!

The Boss's View of My Kid

It makes me so gosh-darn proud when my kid's recommendation gets somebody a job!

Katie got her job at Burger King because the manager figured hiring any of Philip's siblings would be a good move.

Philip got his job at Borders because Rachel worked there.  But more than that, Rachel's reputation carried enough weight through the whole region that Anthea, Coral, and Maria were hired at other Borders stores.

Tony asked Andrew the other day if he should hire James (one of the guys at church).  Andrew said yes.  Because Andrew had recommended Matthew, and that turned out so well for the boss, the owner decided to take another recommendation from Andrew.

Heeding my kid's recommendation on who-to-hire says a lot about what the boss thinks of the kid's work ethic, reliability, and intelligence!

Stuff

Perennial onions and cilantro are poking up in the garden.

Maggie and I are working on identifying trees in the pine family. Almost everything we find are spruces, with a pine here and there. No firs, no hemlocks, no junipers. I need to find an arboretum.

We saw the oral surgeon this week about the extraction of Maggie's wisdom teeth.  The doctor said she's one of the rare people who actually has room in her mouth for wisdom teeth, and they came in nicely, unimpacted.  But becauce of the vcfs, her teeth rot so badly.  Some molars erupt with decay already in them.  Wisdom teeth will rot.  Not "might rot."  But will.  So they must go.

One of my favorite talk-radio hosts suggested using Verify the Recall to get an idea of where people running for [non-partisan] local office stand on some issues.  It seemed like a fantastic idea, and I spent some time this evening looking up school board members and town board members.  The village board is a good deal more liberal than the board governing the township.  County board is next on the list.  If you're in Wisconsin, use the list.  (Of course, first you should verify whether your name was added without your signing.  Not that I would ever suggest that there were irregularities or forgeries on these petitions....)

We stayed up too late last night, hoping for better ogling of the northern lights. All we found was ever-so-faint ones. But hey! Northern lights! Cool -- even if they are so faint as to be nearly invisible.

My regularly-scheduled days at work are going to be changing in mid-spring. I was SO looking forward to being able to attend symposium this year. Alas, I am again going to miss much of it. At least I make it through Passiontide this year, still with the bestest imaginable work-schedule.  My schedule will presumably change again in fall, when one of my co-workers begins a new semester in college and her class schedule changes.  This makes it hard to figure out what days to buy APT tickets for.

Athena has gotten snugly in her old age.  She likes sleeping with a person.  She will jump up on laps and ask to be petted.  Last night, our bedroom door did not latch when we closed it.  You know the game king-of-the-hill?  Well, I was the hill, and there was a cat-spat over domination of the hill, and who got to sleep on my back.  Silly girls.

Maggie had a hankering for cookies. So for some unreasonable reason, we threw together a batch of chocolate chip cookies  last night. Mmmmmm. Warm cookies!

Perfectly Balanced

After 15 months, I finally had a month where my drawer at work was balanced every day, there was no need to contact customers to correct errors I made, and all my paperwork ran through the "proof machine" without mistakes.  That means I finally made the Perfectly Balanced List.

Thing is, there were a couple of mistakes I made that were the kind that didn't show up in the place that counts toward being perfectly balanced.  So I was feeling guilty for making the list.  (Some way to hit my first time on the poster, eh?)  Then I was the only one from our branch who made it this month, and my boss praised me before the rest of the employees.  More guilt.  Then to top it off, I won the drawing for a restaurant gift-card.  I didn't even know that making the list made you eligible for a prize, but I won it, the very first time I made the list.  More guilt. 

Can I enjoy the lovely dinner-date with Gary even if I know I don't deserve the prize?

At least Gary's having fun with this.  Look at the name of my blog and the reason I chose that name.  Gary keeps laughing at the words "perfectly balanced" being used in conjunction with me in any way, shape, or form!

An Impression

A customer came in today. I've waited on the mom but never the daughter. I knew the daughter's name without being told and called up her account to begin filling out the deposit ticket. They were impressed that I remembered.

But it's not me that was being impressive.

I started thinking about the customers who made an impression on me when I started the job. There was the one to whom I gave $20 too much. An hour later she showed up with a $20 bill and said, "I think you counted wrong." I was so grateful for her honesty. She made a huge impression on me.

Another customer saw The New Girl and made sure to heckle me and give me the Trial-By-Fire, handing me a transaction that was none too simple, right at the start. "Break 'er in right," he plotted. The heckling is consistent with his fun and constantly upbeat demeanor. He made a big impression on me.

Then there was the customer that chewed me out royally for not wanting to cash a check that I wasn't supposed to cash, and taking the time to consult with the boss. The yeller made an impression on me too.

And then there was this family that came in today. When I first started work, Maggie was sick, and getting sicker. Just when I was wondering day-by-day whether we could keep her unhospitalized for another day or two, a man (who turned out to be a regular, frequent customer) came in and said his daughter was hospitalized. He started to cry. A grown man. In the bank. His strength for his wife and daughter had been holding up fine through the ordeal. But when he was running an errand, when someone asked how things were going, it was suddenly too much. His worries and the depth of his love got the better of his composure. And hitting so close to home with my own worries for my own daughter, that family too made an impression on me.

Superficiality

Superficiality makes the world go round.

I've never been keen on that.  I like real.  I like genuine.  I like honest.  But that requires trust and love and commitment. 

Customers come into the bank.  "Hi, how are you today?"  "Just fine.  And you?"  "Pretty good, thanks."  There are certain conversations that are acceptable: the weather, the Packers, gardens, the Brewers, the Badgers, and plans for upcoming holidays (if there's one around the corner).  If you really want to push the envelope and go a step closer to real conversation, you might say, "You been keeping busy?" 

People say they're "fine" when they're not; they know this is all superficial.  Sometimes you bump into someone who's very alone, and you learn not to ask about holiday plans because the loneliness is overwhelming and they can't respond according to the rules of The Superficial Game.

And yet, I'm beginning to see that this is necessary.  "Have a great afternoon."  "Thanks.  You too."  "Well, thank you."    It's what we do.  It keeps things pleasant.  It may be shallow.  We may not be connecting with those hundreds of neighbors that cross our path.  But the other option is grumpiness and incivility. 

This pervasive superficiality leaves a person yearning for a real relationship.  But so many times, in so many places, that's not an option.  So I guess the superficial pleasantries are better than complete aloofness or general crabbiness.