Monday, December 17, 2007

I feel like Garth …

Today I spent 6 ½ hours on a conference call with a new customer training them on our software. Originally I was going to go to Houston for a day of training, but they decided to use some WebX application instead. (which didn’t work, btw)

You know me, the travel girl. Not that Houston is a Top 10, “Places I Want to Go” destination, but a friend from Australia (former co-worker) was in the states, and there was a chance we were going to be in Houston at the same time. Plus, my little brother is in Dallas. I was hoping to arrange a meet up.

So, Travel Girl here, was slightly less than happy to be doing the “distance training” thing. Training over the phone vs training in person REALLY SUCKS. It wasn’t the smoothest day of training either.

Of course, I didn’t know until Thursday at 4:30 that this was the plan, and I didn’t get the data until AFTER the conference call session started. I also haven’t been the contact for these customers preceding this point, so “control freak Mit” was feeling decidedly “out-of-control” and unprepared.

Near the end of the day we hit some snags with the data and the program. I remained cheerful and confident with the customer, until I allowed something very, very, bad to happen. I’d tell you what it was, but you wouldn’t understand. Let’s just say out of 4690 needles, I have to find the 370 that shouldn’t be around.

Leaving work I was morose. Maybe even sadder than morose. It’s possible I felt defeated. And incompetent. Plus I knew I’d dream about the problems all night long.

It was a long drive home. I didn’t even have my carpool buddies to cheer me up. Driving down my street, just before I turned into the driveway, I noticed there were caution horses at the street intersecting my street. The street that parallels the park. (You know, the street where the Hit-and-Run-Guy) turned. I noticed a tree from the park was resting on my next-door neighbor’s house.

(Resting sounds so nice and benign, doesn’t it? It wasn’t “resting” it had FALLEN. LOST IT’S GRIP. COMMITTED TREE SUICIED!)

Anyway, this is the next door neighbor whose van got TOTALED by the Hit-and-Run-Guy. At that moment I thought to myself, “Wow! She really must have pissed off some minor deity. First her car gets totaled parked in front of my house, and now she has a suicide tree on her roof.”

I drove around the block (the other way) to get a closer look. It appears it’s only the very top part (or crown) that’s resting on the corner of the house. It looks like nothing is broken/smashed/squashed.

Pulling into my driveway I thought, “You are so lucky Mit. Lucky you don’t live in that house, lucky your car wasn’t hit over the weekend, and lucky there’s no suicide tree leaning on your house.” But I still didn’t feel very “lucky”. I was still upset about work and the mess I’d made, and that’s waiting to be faced by me in the morning.

I got out of my car and noticed a package on my doorstep. I opened my mailbox and there was another package. Walking into the house I remembered the way yummy soup waiting for dinner tonight. On my answering machine there was a message from my insurance agent. Some other minor incident (not previously mentioned because “I am an idiot and do stupid things” and don’t want to tell you about ALL of them) is covered under my homeowners policy, and there’ll be no deductible for me to pay when they repair the consequences of said stupidity.

Before I opened up my present from the front porch, I reminded myself of the very generous present a customer sent me today. A present that a friend suggested I use to do something completely “frivolous” for myself. When I’d unwrapped the porch present, I discovered it was from the realtor who sold me my house SEVEN years ago. A tin of Chocolate Coated Peanuts. One of the few chocolate/candy items I really like. SEVEN YEARS after she sold me my house!!

Next, I opened up the mailbox present. It was from an Aunt in California. It contained cocktail napkins that say, “Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much”. The note included said, “Every time, everywhere I see this saying, I think of you! This is just a small “love gift”, not a Christmas present.”

I reflected on that note. I do “live well”. I there are lots of reasons in my life to “laugh often”. I don’t know if I “love much”, but I know I am much loved.

And in that moment, Garth’s words, from Wayne’s World, came to me.

“I am not worthy, I am not worthy.”

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Whatever the software problemis, it can be fixed. Look at all the times you've come through for me!!
You are loved and thought of often!! P.S. I helped out one of your customers today. You may want to call her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ha!!

Anonymous said...

What did you do NOW ???