Accidental Reoccurences?

Some things in life happen more than once in a short period of time, and one may wonder the chance of that happening twice is rare. Though my official start date with Staples is September 7, 2015, I’ve already had the opportunity to work four day hours to get better acclimated with the Copy and Print department way of doing my new job.

My first-ever shift at the Easton Market Staples (Wednesday, August 26, 2015, 9am-1pm) turned out to be both good and bad. Among the more negative experiences was I being unaware of how to enter the store before it opened, having no password to check in and out for the day, the person I was shadowing rather noisily, Jinger, was unaware I would be there so she had no idea what my supervisor (Johnson) wanted me to accomplish.

Among the great things I completed was the stapling (and restapling) of sixty instruction manuals, the sanitizing of the nasty-smelling employee refrigerator (because I was bored), dumping old documents into the shredding bin, and helping a customer find the right version of Matthew 18:4-5 for a banner (yellow in color, red lettering, four babies of various nationalities and race) to coincide with a single parent fair with young kids held by a church. (I felt competent in Bible research with my background.)

We finally settled on the New Century Version which simply stated, “The greatest person in the kingdom of heaven is the one who makes himself humble like a child. Whoever accepts a child in my name accepts me.” I blessed her efforts, and said I felt with resources being provided that profound difference would be made in someone’s life.

The crowning achievement of my brief shift at Staples happened when I was bending in from a metal chair to better clean the inside of the refrigerator. The strenuous effort caused my black pants to rip from the backside to underneath. My long red Meijer luckily covered my shame. In my attempt to be the good Mr. Clean I disposed of someone’s lunch that looked bad, but wasn’t. 

From 5-10pm the same day at Meijer, the monotony of greeting was broken up by giving customers directions to the shopping carts, guest services (for returns) and bathrooms, assisting a customer in finding shoe trees (in the shoe department), returning refrigerated food items to their proper safe location, checking bathrooms, and repeatedly telling patrons I was fine when they asked.

The crowning achievement for this job happened during my fifteen minute lunch break (around 7:30pm). Sitting down hard on a break room chair, I once again felt a familiar ripping on the backside of tan pants I was wearing. Once again my red Meijer’s work shirt saved the day as the accident was hidden until I gladly exited the facility at 10pm.

Was this just a coincidence, or were my ruined pants (in black and tan) part of a bigger life lesson? Crazy (and sometimes humorous) things happen.  There is no logical explanation. Many times one has to “go with the flow.” If you can adjust to your circumstances, it much better than emotionally breaking because you will not change with the times. (Therapy is not cheap.) Ask for help when it is needed. There are those who want lend a hand, but you need to be courageous enough to step out on faith.