Ever meet, or have to deal with a person, which no matter what happens in
dealings between you, if something goes wrong, it is your fault? At the
college where I have my vending route I frequently am required to deal with
just such a person. He is in charge of the residence halls and when we move
vending machines around due to updating or in this case, floors being
replaced, I must deal with him and he is very anal about every little
detail of us moving them in and out or about the buildings and quick to
find any little thing to pin us on or try to get me under his pecking order
by trying to intimidate me, which does not work with me. To his credit, he
is much better than he once was, however today we arranged to move machines
in two buildings. This task should have taken one and a half to two hours
tops. However, this man mistakenly measured wrong for the material which
the machines were to sit on top of, mylar type material. So after our
realization, I suggested one solution... "No, no" he said. "That's bogus!"
OK I said. Well then I proposed another one, which of course that was no
good. He suggested one or two and they were obviously not a solution. And
we wound up using my first solution... bogus as it was at first. After this
debacle of time and efforts we finally got them situated and on to the next
building. Where we ran into yet another issue of wrong measured figures
where the machines were meant to fit between two pipes in a  vestibule
area. I knew they would not fit there, why?
Because that is where the machines were before we moved them for the
flooring to be put in, and they never did fit between them. But insistently
he wanted to measure, no I take that back, first he wanted me to move the
machines 30 feet across the building paving the way with plywood to not
scratch the floor to see if they fit. I looked in amazement and suggested
we measure first. So  I grab one end of the ruler and put it against the
pipe as would seem to make sense to see if the machines would fit between
the two pipings. Of course I already knew they wouldn't but humoring him
yet more with my time and my paid employee's time. Insistently he said to
measure from wall to wall and not pipe to pipe, and we'd subtract. Subtract
what I'm not sure but anyway I humored him. Then we did in fact measure
between the pipes to find the machines indeed would not fit, thus making
the material too shallow. Plus he had huge cut outs around the pipes for
which the legs of the machines to fall onto the tile flooring making for
wobbly machines. This is where he began to cuss and exclaim how me the
vender are going to do this next time and do that next time and etc. I
felt  my face turning red with anger as I've already wasted nearly an
entire day on a two hour job due to his mistake which I was more than
willing to overlook, and had understood a mistake is a mistake and wanted
to just move on, but he was now blaming me for his inability to put the
spacial concept in his mind or read a ruler properly, or whatever his
problem was. I replied fairly sternly and at one point not very
Christian-like. Which got me thinking about this again in the first place.
I basically told him that all he needed to do was measure the old boards
that were under the machines and duplicate them with the new material, or
just ask me to help with the measurements, all he had to do was ask and I'd
be happy to help. But he is much the power tripping tyrant wanting to rule
all things so in this case he had to bare the fact he messed up, couldn't
and tried to blame me and I pushed back. I found myself sort of brooding on
this thing today. I mean I was willing to work with him no matter what it
took, I understood he messed up the measurements in not one, but two
buildings, I was willing to over look he cost me nearly a days wages of
labor plus my time, plus the loss of machine servicing we had planned on
doing yet today and now rescheduled for Monday, but I was unwilling to let
this man think he was right and I was wrong. And in his attempt I found
myself in anger. I normally  recognize anger for what it is, fear of
something. Then when I got home I was replying to an email and I have these
little tag lines which automatically appear at the bottom of my emails.
Some are ones I found and some are ones I put there of wise sayings I've
accumulated. The one in this email was "He who angers you, controls you".
Oh no! I thought. lol. Here I thought I was being angry to not let him
control me and I indeed let him control me by being angered. So I then read
some Scriptures on the topic of anger and found this beauty lol.

"For the churning of milk produces butter,
And pressing the nose brings forth blood"

It is probably a good thing I didn't press his nose lol.

After pondering on it, I began feeling extremely guilty because I often
wear T-shirts at work  that have a Scripture or something neat like an
eagle with the scripture saying "mount up like eagles" or the like and here
I let him push me into a behavior not Christian-like, not terrible, but not
Christian-like. I know I'm not perfect, make mistakes, but  it is just like
this type of person to think Christians are hypocrites to the max and it is
fake or whatever. Partly why I wear them is because it can allow for a
conversation starter, and it does help keep me accountable for such
incidents, but I didn't do such a good job this time lol. I need to deal
with this guy in two more buildings so I have opportunity to redeem myself
eh? lol. That would be the positive way to look at it anyway. Aside from
Scripture talking about anger being that of a fool, and unprudent, I know
anger is a result of fear. My fear was he'd get off scot-free thinking he
was right and somehow I messed up. I basically stooped to his level of
pride and reacted out of fear of damage to that pride, when I ought have
been secure in knowing in my own heart,  the truth of the situation. Well
now I know and it will never ever never ever happen again... right? lol



Brad

   The church is prayer-conditioned