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Difficult Boss?
This Employee Pours on Patience..
by Beth Carey from
Spirituality.com
You better think about
whether you want this job!" the boss
screamed at the top of her lungs. My
friend Darcy was in tears and trembling.
Her boss, Katherine, just kept yelling.
(All names in this article have been
changed.)
That's the way work went.
The entire office would hear Katherine as
she threatened contractors, her husband
and children—and now Darcy was getting it.
After staying home for 12 years to raise her three
children, Darcy rejoined the work force. She was ready for a horizon
bigger than Girl Scout cookies and swim meets. She thought her new job,
as an assistant to Katherine, a local real estate agent, would be less
stress-filled than her pre-marriage banking job. Daughter number one,
Liz, was two years away from college. Jerry, Darcy's husband, was
supporting the family nicely, but college expenses for three children
loomed on the horizon. Darcy wanted to contribute to the college fund
with the income from her new job
But the biggest challenge: The Boss
What was it
like going back to work after 12 years of
being a full-time mom? Getting herself up
to speed in the computer world was the
first challenge. Getting her kids to eat
their vegetables after filling up on
afternoon snacks—another challenge. But
the biggest challenge: the boss.
Darcy has been working for
Katherine for two years. She says so many
times she wanted to storm out saying, "I
quit!" But, she is not a quitter. She
says, "I don't believe in getting mad and
quitting. I would never leave out of
spite.”
But Darcy hadn't factored
a difficult boss into her plans for the
working world. "Katherine," says Darcy,
"is the type that doesn't want to be
trumped. She always has to be right. She
can really bawl you out and expect you to
be friends the next minute, as if you
didn't have any feeling after what she
said.” These interactions had often
brought Darcy to tears.
Darcy turns to prayer
regularly to find spiritual solutions for
her problems. "Every day I talk to God,”
she says, “I feel that God needs to be
expressed out in the world. I want to live
my spirituality, not just preach it." In
other words, for Darcy, God is not someone
she just meets in private. She has always
felt God's presence in her home and
church. She expected to express it right
there in her office all day long, too
More and more, she is able to remain
poised and gracious
One of the ideas she got
while praying was to think of herself as a
thermostat instead of a thermometer. As a
thermostat, she keeps her own temperature.
A thermometer goes up and down according
to the temperature around it. Darcy's goal
is not to go up and down emotionally with
every one of Katherine’s outbursts. Even
though staying calm through her boss's
storms isn’t easy, more and more, Darcy
stays poised and gracious and doesn’t get
upset with every door her boss slams.
Darcy often refers to the
ideas in Science and Health with Key to
the Scriptures, a book she reads
daily. She’s enjoyed thinking about the
statement, "One infinite God, good,
unifies men..." She’s beginning to get a
deeper understanding of the one infinite
God, good, tying us all together as part
of the same good creation. Darcy feels we
are all brethren. She explains that she’s
not just waiting for Katherine to change,
nor is Darcy feeling that she must buckle
under. What Darcy feels is that a sense of
unity should exist day after day.
Darcy finds her focus on
unity very practical. She says, "Things
are different from what they were those
first months. I do sense that [Katherine]
appreciates my stability. She's been out
of the office quite a bit lately, and I
know my dependability and honesty is
valued." One of their major clients told
Darcy that Katherine had said: "Darcy is
just all heart."
There's been a
change in Darcy as well
Turning to God on a daily
basis has brought little pinpoints of
light in the relationship. Katherine still
flares up, but not quite so much. "One
time recently she was bubbling,” Darcy
says, “and I was certain she was going to
blow, but then she kept it under control.
I feel there has been a softening. In some
ways the whole atmosphere is better. It's
been a couple of months since there has
been a major blow.”
There’s been a change in
Darcy as well. Because of her daily,
thoughtful prayer, she no longer reacts as
much to her boss’s outbursts. She recalls
how at first she would just be trembling
when the boss yelled and slammed doors.
"With God's help, I feel I am keeping my
own level of calm," Darcy relates now.
Just before Christmas
Darcy went to Katherine’s house to help
her get ready for a big office party. “I
really cleaned and got rid of stacks of
papers on her desk at home,” Darcy
recalls. “I ran one of the games during
the party. She said to me, ‘I couldn’t
have done it without you.’ I think this
going the extra mile added good vibes and
went a long way toward calming the overall
atmosphere.”
Just the other day, when
Darcy arrived at work, she found a
computer-made sign on her door that read:
“Certificate of appreciation presented to
Darcy, assistant extraordinaire, on your
birthday.” Darcy says she was really
touched by that sign. “The thing that
meant the most was the wording and that it
was actually made on the computer by my
boss,” Darcy says. “It meant so much more
than any card she could have purchased. It
made my day. I couldn’t believe that she
would take time to make it. Really sweet.”
And the icing on the cake: Katherine took
Darcy out to a surprise birthday lunch.
Darcy’s kids may not be
eating as many vegetables, and the house
may not be as clean, but putting prayer in
her “in-box” continues to prove its worth.
