The failures of others

Work happens to be a big part of my life. It is definitely not my only thing, but I do care about doing a good job and being challenged and satisfied in what I do. I work for a professional services organization in the marketing department preparing proposals, winning work and doing other marketing things. There is more to it, but that’s it in a nutshell. It’s a pretty competitive field and can tend to get stressful with lots of deadlines and late nights, but I always strive to put out the best product I can to win projects and keep everyone working.

So one of the things that gets me the most is when the failures of others affects me doing my job. Since my job happens to depend on others getting me information, I tend to do a lot of hurrying up and waiting, which is what I’ve been doing the past two days. Hurry up, get my work done, and then wait for others. Today was the final straw. The deadline was approaching and still nothing. After much discussion it was discovered that the one responsible for getting me information had decided to not pursue this particular project and failed to inform everyone else working on it. I couldn’t believe it….livid!

Since one of my resolutions this year is to work on my relationship with God, I’ve been taking my bible to work with me and reading for a bit before everyone else shows up to work. I tend to get in early since I carpool, so I have a few minutes of quiet time before the lights get turned on. This morning I read about accepting God’s spirit, but what really hit me was when I looked up stress in the index of my bible and turned to James 1:2-4, which reads:

My brothers and sisters, when you have many kinds of troubles, you should be
full of joy. Because you know that these troubles test your faith, and this will
give you patience. Let your patience show itself perfectly in what you do.

I thought about that for a few minutes and realized that I was not very patient. Yes, I was annoyed but my venting was not a good reaction. Me dumping my frustrations on my co-workers did them nor I any good. I should stay calm and just remember that I can only work on the things I can control, but I can’t control everything. I need to remember that even in the small things like a work disturbance, my faith needs to shine through and I need to practice a little patience. And really couldn’t there be worse things going on?