February 22, 2006

Reflections On Perfection

Reflected Perfection- Palms at Wailoa State Park Hilo Hawaii

I read once that nature glorifies God by being just what it was created to be...The animals, the weather, the inanimate things, all were created good and perfect, as was mankind. Its sin and the resulting problems that rebellion against God creates that disfigures the earth, humanity and our relationships...

But that inner nature that was perfect and now is not and strives for that impossible perfection can drive you crazy. I am a perfectionist only in my public persona, especially my work. I have the perfectly clean desk and in basket. I want my notes and stuff left alone when I am not here and the least misstep makes my ears burn... I am much much better about this fear of being found to be less than perfect ie human. This place that I am working at (hey a great pseudonym for my job "thisplace") does so much desk sharing that everyone has everyone's password and code numbers ect. That keeps me less controlling and more sharing, and is a GOOD thing. I just now messed up a situation and when I asked a co workers help to fix it, he said for me to not "fix" it, he'd just re do it, adding another task to his day. These are people worth working with, and this time here has been good.

Working at home might not be the best thing for me as that environment is not controllable as there are three other individuals that mess up borrow things...(the cats will take every pen and pencil off of my desk, every loose thing that will make a good scooty toy. Makoa will pull the desk drawers open, and Nani will jump on the computer to get attention...Lest I leave Woody out he wants to sit and drink coffee and sugary soda around the precious computer and worse my printer. I can see the impending disaster in my mind's eye... I had one like that once.... I screwed up a $15,000.00 encoding machine at the credit union that I worked at with a cup of hot joe, so I know that coffee and machines don't agree... Let me tell you that incident blew my "Miss Perfect" bit all to heck. My Mom had to be moved out of her home the next week which allowed me the excuse to be gone from work for a week so I could regain my composure... The CEO of the Credit Union, a delightful Christian man who would have made a great pastor, had me in for coffee and a chat when I came back to say that my accident had forced them to do something that they had put off way too long replacing the decrepit machine that gave us so much trouble... Turning my embarrassment into a Divine Appointment was Mr. Holbrook's way to gently lift the feeling of humiliation that I truly felt and gave me permission to be human.

I needed that and I needed it last night.

I called Sunday evening for the final one on one sessions with HSN and I did ok but the guy on the other end felt that I could use a few more days of practice and resecduled me to call last night. Well I thought that I was in, and that this was training time. I was to learn other wise and when I was on the phone with this new agent I was told that this was also a test and that I was being graded. I really struggled with this and frankly what I was told to work on was only part of what we covered. You have to remember to use a new script that doesn't appear on the screen and the screens on the program are very complicated. I do believe that this was the hardest "system" I have ever tried to learn... By the time we were done I was in a hyperventalating sweat, and there were a lot of errors mostly due to "My impatience with the system". This was supposed to be a real time exercise, but I guess I thought that I was in error when the screen didn't do what I thought it should as fast as it should. Sadly they feel that I should be conversant with this even though none of the exercises that I had practiced on ever were full transactions. HSN doesn't allow that info to get out until test day. I failed miserably and like American Idol, no second chance.... Perfection or nothing.

I got the bums rush email, and was numb. I figure that I spent 250 hours of study three full days off work, spent the money to put a phone line in, and risked my job at Thisplace, it was a huge letdown.

But Woody, (who thinks they rigged it slow so Id fail as they have too many people that passed the tests... He reads too many mystery novels and looks for a conspiracy under every trouble) said he was so impressed with how I had strived for this and that they wanted "too much perfect". It would make me crazy... To not worry about it and lets think twice about this work at home thing. Home is a place to escape from work, maybe we do too much work at home now with the shop and all...maybe he has a point...

He's likely right... I think that things will be very different at "thisplace"when I return from my eye surgery intwo weeks. Likely I will have no job. So I am starting to look for a part time job. A new job. I hate job hunting, but I do it with the same energy as I do everything else... and in the mean time I feel like I have recovered from last nights painfilled ordeal. Woody thinks that I handled the disappointment better than I have handled other things of this nature. Maybe I am learning to let things go, and that these sorts of things are Divine appointments afterall, just like Mr. Holbrook said, they move you into directions that you would not go to unless pushed....