Gratitude

I work for a state agency doing “case” work and “cases” get read by a senior worker; not all cases but a random draw. I have always learned a great deal from these “readings”; especially when I was a new worker. I found it no different than when I was doing quarterly reports for the FCC and our director of compliance would look them over before they were submitted. If she found something she didn’t quite like she’d correct every instance so there would be no mistaking what she meant. Granted it was annoying but it insured that every instance would be corrected. Back to case readings, when we combined offices due to the closing of “service centers” to save the state money and annoying the clients we had new senior workers reading our cases. There was one who changed her mind from case to case and week to week on what she considered an error, if one week I put for example the sky was blue she’d want a correction to the sky was aqua, the next week I’d make sure the sky was aqua and she’d want it blue. I could never win, I’d eventually gotten my fill of this pettiness and had it out with her. Over the years our roles have changed a bit and she no longer “reads” my case work and I like to think we have become friends. About 2 years ago she received a devastating medical diagnosis but she still is a pit bull when it comes to reading cases! As with a state agency there is always change and next week we are moving offices and it appears that she will occupy my current space, she was concerned about the temperature and I called her in to “feel” what the room was like with the A/C running. I don’t remember how it came up but I said something about thinking about her disease as a blessing, she smiled and said yes, I have to have an attitude of gratitude.Wow, I thought, she has changed and so have I. It's hard to be grateful of difficult times; I have realized that over the past year and I'm glad I'm not alone!

For all the tears and smiles, I am so grateful for this woman who has at time made my life at work miserable. She has softened a tiny bit and has become more humane plus she has a cat, so she can’t be all bad. I love how bits of gratitude find their way to be seen and remembered.