Attitude Makes the Difference

I had to laugh.

I got up a little early this morning to take care of a couple things before I went in to help out with church set up. At 0630 the phone rang calling me in to work. Yesterday they assured me they wouldn’t need me until after 1200 at the earliest. Go figure.

So it was a quick shower, coffee-up the travel mug, grab a snack, and off to the port. On the way I activated my contingency plan.

Now I’m a big fan of contingency plans. It bugs me when I get left hanging because someone else didn’t think ahead a little so I try not to do that to other folks. And since I knew I was first on call this weekend, I’d made arrangements to cover my church commitments, “just in case.”

Well it all worked out because I only had to make a couple of phone calls, and there was one slightly out of the way stop to drop off some stuff, and I still got to the ship before they were even ready for me. The whole thing went fairly smoothly.

The most stressful part was when the phone first rang. I forgot that the phones at work had been forwarded to my cell phone when I crawled out of bed. Normally I try to take my cell out of the bedroom in the mornings that the phones are on me so that, if it rings, it won’t wake Gorgeous up. I ran back to the other end of the house as soon as I heard it. But there is no way she was going to be able to sleep through that racket! Oops.

Anyway I got my work done and made it back to church about 20 minutes after service started, which was pretty good overall. At least I was able to help tear down and put some things away after service.

Then at lunch one of my friends said, “Man, it stinks that you had to go to work today.”

That’s when I laughed.

I told him he had it all wrong. “I never have to go to work. I get to go to work.”

You see I’ve been unemployed before and I remember what it was like to not be able to go to work. No one holds a gun to my head and says you must do this job now. It’s completely my choice.

I get a little frustrated with folks who chronically complain about their jobs. No I know that everyone has an off day from time to time. I’m not talking about that.

But the folks who seem to never have anything good to say about their job and who go on and on (and on and on and on) covering every detail of how absolutely horrible everything about their work place is, those people drive me nuts.

More often than not I’ll cut someone off in the middle of a rant like that and remind them that they live in America. If they don’t like their job, go out and find another one. No one is making them work where they are. They are free to leave and go somewhere else where they could maybe be happy.

Since I have been unemployed I understand what it takes to get a job. And, yes, I’ve done some things that weren’t so fun simply because I had bills to pay. You do what you have to do. But even then I didn’t complain (too loudly) about it. I knew that I was free to move on whenever I chose.

The truth is that the chronic complainers would probably still find something to complain about even if they switched jobs to one that had none of the problems they are whining about now. They really want to complain more than they want to do the hard work required to improve their situation.

Life’s too short to get sucked into that kind of thinking. Besides, no one wants to hear it.

Deal with it. Fix it. Or move on.

Your attitude makes the difference.

Of course I fully expect Gorgeous to remind me that I wrote this the next time I start feeling sorry for myself and go off on a rant. And she’ll be right, too.

Enjoy!

Tags: Attitude, Contingency Plans, CREEations, Chris Cree