Thank You Mr. Spock

My elder son came into the room one day when I was trying to pour cat food in the bowl. The fat and greedy cat we call Tuxedo nudged the bag with his head and caused it to spill all over the floor. I was annoyed, and since I had someone to listen, I complained. “Every time I try to pour this food that beast hits the bag and dumps it on the floor!”

“Seems like one of you would figure it out” came the logical reply from my son. It gave me a laugh and a lesson, one of many I have learned from my children. If I am the smarter, the stronger, or the wiser, why do I expect the slower, the weaker, or the less enlightened to make good decisions?

At work my boss comes to me time and time again with an assignment that only I can do. He bases this decision on his belief that I am the most patient of teachers. It is good that he cannot hear the conversation going on in my mind when he brings me with these missions of tolerance. Since so many people seem to think the same way about me, I’ve been trying to figure out why.

It may have something to do with the fact that I was reared in a home where a voice was never raised in anger, and I also live in such a home now, the one I created for my family. We are all in the dictionary under passive-aggressive, so don’t think we all go around stoned all the time. Once when my younger son was about ten I was speaking to him about neglected work at school in my usual calm soft tone. My son says,
“Why are you yelling at me?” I replayed the last 5 minutes of our conversation in my mind quickly.
“I’m not yelling son.” I said with surprise.
“Well, it feels like you are” came his response. Evidently sometimes it really is what you say, not how you say it, but perhaps I am fooling some of the people with my demeanor, just not all the people all of the time.

My father often told me that he never asked any man who worked for him to do a job that he would not do himself. He usually proved it by getting right in there beside them with his own brains, muscle, and sweat. He didn’t believe that any job was beneath him or that any honest work was ignoble. I saw my Dad stand before a congregation of 500 people and explain the church budget in his best blue suit, and then clean out the septic system in our front yard in the same week. I was proud of my Father’s work ethic and I took it as my role model. I also expect it from others, which is often the source of my raging but silent annoyance with sloth and ignorance. What my boss probably sees in me is not patience, but persistence. When he asks me how things are going I usually say great, but on rare occasions I have to tell him someone’s not working out well. I won’t give up I tell him, but just want to make him aware that there may be some problems. He says he trusts my judgment and he does, because so far, I’ve not been wrong.

I was not wrong about the really cute girl from his former job, the one he hired personally and was just let go. I trained her about three months ago and told him when I released her that she wouldn’t be here long. It wasn’t a matter of intelligence this time, but of work ethic. She didn’t have one. In the two weeks I spent training her, she was gone more than half the time, usually in his office conferring, but often in the hall using her cell phone, or just chatting up people who were trying to work. He had to know this was an issue, but he’s been a bit of a slacker himself, especially when it comes to the ladies. My next cube mate is also a trainer and has made some disparaging remarks from time to time. I usually stay out of office gossip, but I got drawn in after mentioning that my evaluations hadn’t been done for three months and wondered why. My friend told me I needed to flirt with the boss more. Now you don’t think I’m letting that one pass by, right? I soon discover he’s correct; the girls who flirt with and flatter him have their evaluations each month. I sent an email and set up a meeting for that day. He sounded sincerely apologetic, and told me I exceed expectations in all areas. He says he thought I knew that, so he was negligent about getting around to telling me. He wants me to go to Denver to do training in June. He tells me again that I have a great future with the company. I thank him graciously in my usual sweet calm voice. I don’t sound even faintly annoyed. It only takes about 10 minutes, including the time he stopped to answer a personal phone call. As I leave the office I wonder if he’s right about my patience. I also wonder how he’s going to feel when I have his job.