Little Things

Jesus has been helping a sister out lately.  Thank God.  Or, Thank You, Jesus.  Rather than working alone, drowning in work, on a difficult assignment…God gave me some help.  And going through a tough time with a team versus going through it alone makes a huge difference.  I have people to joke with, eat lunch with, share the workload…it has really turned the situation around.  Shoofee Rabena? (that was Arabic.  And I’m assuming you’re female).

Something happened the other day that almost made me cry.  The good kind of cry.  But, I work with a group of guys, so I have to pretend that the stigma about women getting emotional at work isn’t true.  So I excused myself from the room and then cried.  Not really.  What happened, you say?  Something so simple, and yet so paramount. 

Remember my blog about losing my cubicle?  And how I explained that we don’t own our cubes so we have to travel with all of our belongings?  Beside my laptop and some notepads, I own a box of tissues and a box of Nestle’s Hot Chocolate.  These items are critical to me getting through the workday.  Because I’m 12.  If nothing else, I make an effort to have these two items with me wherever I end up sitting.  And since I got this new team, we’ve been sitting together in various conference rooms all around the office.  We’re still hopping, but we’re hopping together.  As usual, on Monday morning, I put my box of tissues and box of hot chocolate next to me in the conference room we had reserved for the day.  Then I got sick.  Two unrelated events despite the sequence.  So I went home early, and consequently, took the next day off to recover.  When I returned to work on Wednesday (to a new conference room, which is important to note), my team welcomed me back and asked if I was feeling better.  I said yes and began to unpack my laptop, etc.  As I’m doing this, I look over…and there was my box of tissues and my box of hot chocolate.  My team had remembered to take them with them when they moved to a new conference room…even while I was out sick.  And then I got all choked up.

Sometimes it’s hard to describe what makes you happy.  And even harder to describe what makes you feel loved.  With me, it’s usually through things that are little, but profound.  I guess I just always assume that people aren’t paying attention, or that they have bigger things to worry about.  So when someone does something so small yet so thoughtful like remembering to bring my box of tissues and box of hot chocolate, I want to hug them and clean their house (I enjoy cleaning…I use it to say “thank you”).

And now the internet knows that much more about the inner-workings of Selbouez.  You’re welcome.