Sometimes? Work is okay.
The past two months, I have been working on a project of sorts at work. We have important deadline tomorrow and so nearly every morning for the past three weeks, I get on a call with about 15 co-workers to discuss how things are progressing. As the deadline looms closer, the calls have become a little more tense.
Our team is led by a woman from Georgia with a sweet southern accent who cracks the whip behind everyone. On an afternoon call yesterday, she informed us all that she would not be able to run the call in the evening because she’d be having dinner with her family… because her mother was going to have open heart surgery the next morning. It was a little like hearing that your Sherpa had to turn around and go home when you were nearly to the summit.
This morning, our leader returned to run our morning call. At one point she stopped mid-sentence and said, “I have take this call… it’s my father from the hospital. My mother’s in surgery right now.”
Everyone froze while she switched calls. A few minutes later, we knew she returned because we heard her sigh and then she said, “Guys, I’m having a rough morning.”
Someone said, “How’s your mom?”
She said her father called and said that a blockage has been found in her mother’s heart and a stint was being placed. She sounded distraught.
Someone else said, “My father had open heart surgery… he has a pig valve in his heart.”
She said, “really?”
And then we talked for about 15 minutes and forgot our project and everyone seemed to take a deep breath and a collective exhale.
And then we got back to work.
It’s actually not so bad.
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Just a random attorney writing about daily life with Little Filthy, my rotten dog.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
I love it when spontaneous support happens like that. It just flows naturally, without feeling contrived or like someone is doing it because they feel like they “should”.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Isn’t it amazing? The power we hold. That a simple “It will be okay” can make us feel so much better. To know that someone out there really cares…and they do. We do.
January 14th, 2010 at 12:30 pm
My mom died in 2005 after a long drawn out illness. For a year and a half I took my cell phone with me on into each and every meeting I had. Once in the middle of a meeting I received a call from my Dad telling me to get to the hospital the doctors didn’t think she was going to make it through the day. I stood up and simply said, “I have to go NOW”. Luckily everyone that I work with is extremely supportive and understanding. Life tosses us curve balls and unfortunately work moves on without us sometimes. It helps SO much when the people that we work with “get” that.
January 14th, 2010 at 2:10 pm
I agree with your other commenters. Having gone through this with my own parents and working, it’s nice when someone asks and cares.
January 14th, 2010 at 2:18 pm
I am going to rot in hell. The pig valve comment made me laugh inappropriately. I’ll just go sit in the corner now.
January 14th, 2010 at 10:48 pm
Yeah, I was with Jane… I’m so used to your humor that I expected something funny.
I do love when people can put aside work for a moment and focus on each other as people. How nice is that?
January 15th, 2010 at 9:48 pm
I hope her mom came out of surgery ok.