10:55 a.m. - 2006-04-07

Give this man an office, or give me death

Phewwww �. What a week �..

But more about that in a moment. Firstly, I want to say that I know many of you think that I rarely, if ever, speak ill of someone, but I must express my frustration and displeasure over a particular person in my office. I�ve written about this person before. Well, now I�ve got another �issue�, another �quirk� that is driving me crazy.

You must understand that we are an office with very few smaller offices, and one big room with cubicles. I don�t mind cubicle living. In fact, I like my little cubicle in the corner. I just wish that other people respected the fact that cubicle living means a very public living. What is said or noise made in one cubicle is heard and felt in all cubicles.

The somewhat newest quirk of this (above mentioned) fully grown adult individual is to call home every afternoon around 3:30. Now, its not strange or out of place to make personal calls, and for that matter, we are a very relaxed office when it comes to making calls (within reason). However, I must draw the line when it comes to a late 40�s man talking baby talk to their wife, daughter, and � dog.

It�s like clock work. Three thirty comes, and I hear him pick up the phone and dial, and then I begin to hear the gibberish baby talk that he and whomever it is who picks up the phone on the other end flowing freely (much like pablum) from his mouth. And what surprises me even more is that the recipient of this gibberish is obviously open to this style of communication. I can only picture it, but the person on the other end must respond with consensus because the conversation style will go on for 5 minutes or more.

Arrrrgghhhh!!! It�s very hard to listen too, and short of leaving the room � there is no escape.

Lord, give me strength.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On other fine news � as alluded to two entries ago � I have made a lateral move in my job here at the church. As of last Monday (April 3rd) my ministry changed. I am no longer under the umbrella of �Family and Children�s Ministry�, and am the assistant to our Executive Pastor.

When the final words were spoken during a meeting last Thursday, I began to feel a huge weight lifted from my shoulders. I began to feel like I would live and breath freely again.

I may very well have jumped from the frying pan into the fire, but I have let go of the worry of losing my job or ministry, and I believe that God has met me in that. I am giving this new position three months, and if at the end of three months and it�s not working � then I will venture on to whatever God has in store. I like our Executive Pastor; he officiated at T and my wedding in 2002, and we were all good friends before that.

There are still many challenges ahead for both of us. EP (Executive Pastor) is used to operating on his own, but his office was living proof that it wasn�t working. He�s been gone this week, so I have had the opportunity to go in and turn his dumping ground of a cave into a neat, tidy, workable work space. I wish I could show you before and after pictures of it. So inundated with papers it was that EP had taken up working out of any and many other areas of the church with a phone. For the moment, he can work in his office once more.

We�ll see what he�s got to say when he sees it on Monday. I may be out of a job simply because of my magnificent clean up activity! And that�s ok!