Brad,
Oh! Wow! What an unfortunate situation.
I will be praying for you, Brad. I pray the next meeting with this man goes
much better and that God prevailes! Remember you are human, and God knows that.
Lovings!
Pat Ferguson
At 09:09 PM 6/10/04, you wrote:
>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
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