sunshine amidst dark skies

I thought the year started off badly. Missed the first church service of the year. Some issues reared its ugly head on the home ground. Postponed a mentoring session with a young CG member. Work piled up during my 1-week leave. And last not but least, due to a lack of understanding from a not-so-tech-savvy group manager, another colleague's job was dumped on me while he gleefully trumpeted his newfound "freedom" to my assistant manager (AM). I tried to shut him up by getting him to do a proper handover, all he said was he did it through "trial and error".

It was time I did something. I was getting quite fed up of how things were run in the department. My AM wasn't aware I hadn't gotten my new job description ever since I took on the new role. Our former boss didn't even fully inform her of the jobs and projects I had been working on.

With more junk the new responsibility thrown at me, I decided that was the last straw. It's amazing how I have to stay back more than any of the rest do, while me being one of the most efficient tech-savvy employees still have to push myself to be on top of my job. Almost everything under the category "Misc." were deployed to me. How convenient.

My losing weight must've been caused greatly by all these. Well, perhaps my extra curricular activities have something to do with that too! But I thought, with appraisal coming up and the AM being promoted, it would be a good time to bring up all these. I wouldn't want to be accused of not performing well when I could have focused and excel in some rather than spread myself thin and give a lacklustre performance.

This kept me up the previous night. I got up and decided to capture my thoughts and put them on paper. I would've forgotten what I wanted to say if I allowed them to run free. Felt better after writing, but still couldn't sleep.

The AM was kept busy by the division chief the whole day, whatwith his barking and colourful language. A wicked sense of humour was all we had to keep us insane.

Looking at my AM and her harried self, I was worried that she might not be in the right frame of mind to listen to me. I didn't want to give her the impression that I was shirking from my responsibilities. All I wanted to do was to enlighten her the full measure of my jobs and to let her see that if I was not allowed to focus, the miscellaneous would overwhelm me at the expense of my core areas of responsibilities. Don't get me wrong, I'm all out for added responsibility and a better looking resume, but more filing, faxing, stock keeping, and photostating?

So I prayed and prayed. And into her room I went, with my script note paper at hand. Somehow God gave me the words to say, I didn't even say half of what I had planned the morning before. She didn't question much, but instead went straight for my list of jobs and re-delegated a few to the other colleagues. It wasn't much, but the weight was somehow lifted.

And that "trial and error" job which I mentioned? She took that out as well. At that moment, even with the dark skies and rain threatening to pour down, it seemed as if God struck His hand through the clouds and sent a ray of sunshine down on me. I could almost hear angels singing "Ha….llelujah, hallelujah, hallellujah!" God came through for me again. The year might have started off rough, but I shouldn't allow myself to think that that would set the precedent for things to come.