Sometimes Our Greatest Blessings Are to NOT Get What We Thought We Wanted

When I first began working, I actually thought I might LIKE to be an assistant manager. ( No more than that because if you're anything higher you have to agree to move and I'd never agree to move away from a congregation of the church of God.)

And there were some around me who pretty much "promoted" the idea to me indirectly by asking things like, "Have they made you a manager yet?" "Are you a manager?" There was a subtility in these questions that seem to me to imply, You're not doing your job well enough if you aren't made a manager. One person would even tell me how high up in retail her relative had gone and all she was doing for the company.

But it really wasn't others ambitions for me that made me want to be an assistant. It was that I really wanted to be a help in every way I could to get the job done. And my poor boss was "run ragged" keeping up with things that only a manager can do, like signing paper work for refunds, overrings, approving checks, getting change for drawers, and that kind of thing.

However, there were too many issues that came up at the onset of my work "career". I became too controversial almost immediately because I had been set down in a nest of religious sinners and I was proclaiming that I did not sin.

You can handle yourself as God's Spirit directs you, but I've never felt that I was being paid to preach on the job. I never forgot one time when I was eating at a Pizza Hut and the employee who was supposed to be cleaning the dining room was going around from table to table witnessing of the saving grace of Jesus Christ to every customer instead of cleaning up the mess. My thought then was, "That's not what he's being paid to do." And-- in my mind-- it was like stealing the money he was paid to do a job that he was NOT doing. (What judgment you mete, you will be judged by. So, I am conscientious about how I witness on the job.)

However, having said that, I do recognize that people talk about many other things in the work place other than the job itself. So I am not bound up with the thought that I can't say anything about what I believe. Other people bring things up. Why do you do this? Why don't you do that? I feel free to answer questions as long as I can do it quickly or am on break. And I certainly felt free to respond to any remarks my boss made to me. I'd precede my comebacks with, "I'm saying this because you brought the subject up."

But aside from what we say, there's the practical living side of salvation. We DON'T sin so when we are confronted with situations that are a "threat" to our treasure, we protect our treasure.

Early on after my employment, a remark I had made was interpreted as a lie, so I felt compelled to go to the person I had made the remark to and apologize for the misunderstanding. My approach was, "Before I'm anything else, I'm saved and I don't lie. I am sorry about the confusion over what I said. I'll work to be more careful about how I express myself in the future." Simple. Straightforward. Got the job done. Over with. I THOUGHT.

It was a bombshell.

Unbeknown to me, that simple statement I had made privately spread like wildfire through the gossip circles. I was anathema. It didn't help that the ring leader of "the opposition forces" was highly religious.


Anyway, the crux of the issue was that at the onset I was the "outcast" because I had stood for the position that as a saved person I could not tell a lie. The very nature of that situation created a conflict that I could not have prevented and yet held onto a clear conscience. Added to that was the additional grievance that I refused to get caught up in their continual criticism of the boss.

When management is looking for someone to promote to assistant, they do not tend to choose the "outcasts". They want someone who mingles, is accepted by their fellow employees, and in general, does not cause conflict.

As time went on, I began to realize that I didn't even know what I was thinking when I thought I wanted to be an assistant. I began to learn the problems that management has to deal with. They can't just go to work and work and then go home. They are the ones that have to deal with the things I mentioned above-- which are minor compared to the other issues. Employees being insubordinate, not doing their job, or not showing up at all with the same work to be done whether they are there or not. Power outages. Angry customers. Destructive children. Thieves. Unloading trucks that show up unexpectedly when there's no stockmen to do the work. On and on and on. And assistants don't really get paid a whole lot. So, I'm glad that didn't work out.

I was reminded of all this last night when the power went out at work and it was the assistant who had to deal with the issues that created for us.

As an aside, I didn't do any better when I moved to the new store when it came to making the employees love me. Soon after I was transferred, the biggest gossip of all filled my ear full of all her gripes and the injustices that another employee had heaped upon her. The next time we were in the breakroom together, she started the whole conversation again.

I stopped her, "Miss ___," I said, because she was over 80 years old, "I'm not saying what you are telling me is not so, but you've already told me and I don't want to hear it again. I'm here to get along with all the people I work with and I don't want to be talking about them." The fat was in the fire!!! (again) Evidently no one had ever even tried to shut her up before. I became the next victim of her tongue.

I may not be an assistant, but I am still saved. And I'm HAPPY with my job. Very much so. I feel like God worked it out for me to get this job and the longer I work at it the more convinced I am that He did because He has helped me grow through every trial and to enjoy every benefit.

I am very content with my job. And I no longer even want to be "a manager".

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