I Took A Deep Breath

Today, I woke up from a strange dream. The kind that lingers throughout the day toying with your mind. It was ridiculous but still felt real. I slowly managed to get ready for work but the whole time, I kept referring back to the dream. What did it mean?

I took a deep breath and finished getting ready for work.

When I pulled into my parking spot, I looked around. How the heck did I get here? I do not remember driving at all and my drive is between 45 minutes to an hour from home to work. Has that ever happened to anyone else? Just zone out? Is it autopilot? I don't know but it kind of freaked me out. How did I know where to go or what to do if I had not been paying attention?

I took a deep breath and walked inside.

There is a coworker who continuously makes excuses of why he doesn't know something. It is frustrating to watch. He makes moronic decisions that put our company at risk. Today was no exception. I've been working with a different facility within our corporation. Something that the coworker has supposedly been assigned to for the last 2 years. There are so many issues which results in constant complaints from everyone. Today one of the guys there made a pretty good (bad) mistake. Well, when you make mistakes, IT knows before anyone, right? Well, today they called me. The entire IT department had me on speaker phone and were telling me all about the mistakes and how long they've occurred and how frustrated they are. All of them, at the same time. I held the phone away from my ear and stared aimlessly out my window.

I took a deep breath and told them I would work on the resolution.

When I arrived home, I had an email from the company I'm refinancing my car from. Lower interest rates, going to save a lot of money, right? Well, the last step was to send my title in. The email stated that they had not received my title yet, they need it within a time frame. For whatever reason, the title has not made it to its destination in 3 weeks. I need to call these people, 3 weeks? Really? While talking to the customer service rep, she was explaining there is nothing that can be done and the title had to be in their office by Monday and it is Thursday. "Did you send it through UPS or FedEx?" and of course, I didn't, I sent it regular mail. Still trying to be friendly, "Well it would have been easier if you had a tracking number or some sort of rush on the package". No shit.

I took a deep breath and thanked her for trying to help me.

With my frustration level at an ultimate high, I decide it is a good idea to go to the Secretary of State. In Michigan, that is the worse place to visit. You will sit there for hours and hours, so much so that people take vacation days to sit there all day. I need a new title, it is going to take over a week to get it back and I have a deadline for the refinance company. I have to get a title because now mine is lost in the mail. I drove to the SOS, praying the lines were not that long. When I arrived, I parked the car and sat there for a few minutes. I stared out the window.

I took a deep breath and walked into the SOS smiling at strangers.

The interesting part was walking in and seeing a handful of people. Could this be true? I took my number. Number 11. I looked up to see what number they were on and it said 9. What the heck is happening? This is not real. I took a seat and was called up within 5 minutes. I explain my dilemma. The woman smiles and says, "If you want to get your title today, you could go to the other SOS across town." Wait. What? Get my title today? How? Is that legal? Then she smiles and reaches for the pink paper. Holy smokes! She says, "here let me give you this return slip, you won't have to wait in line for service if you hand them this."

I go to the SOS across town and literally waited all of 3 minutes. I swear! I was chuckling to myself by now. This is crazy. No way. I explain my situation and she has me sign couple pages. Without skipping a beat, the lady behind the counter smiles really big and says "Wait here, I will go get your title." I stared at the wall behind her with a goofy grin on my face. I swear if the TV crew from Punk'd or Candid Camera come out, I am going to be really pissed off. She comes back, brand new title in hand. I could not thank her enough. Honestly. I took a deep breath and casually walked out with an overly toothy and uncontrollable smile on my face.

I look at the clock and just shook my head, I still have an hour before I cannot send out UPS overnight and the UPS store is 10 minutes away. I didn't speed, I just casually drove over to the store. I cannot believe that my experience at not one but TWO SOS offices totaled to about 15 minutes tops from walking in the door to walking out. Really, that happened here in Michigan. I almost feel like it's news worthy.

I walk into the UPS Store and the young girl there just smiles and is friendly and helpful as can be. I fill out the information and ask for overnight delivery with a signed receipt. She tells me about the tracking number, guarantees, and why I should skip paying for the additional services. All in all, a good experience and by the time I reached her, I had this overwhelming grateful feeling inside me. I cannot explain with words but it almost made me cry happy tears. How are things working out so well? I think I can make the deadline after all.

I reached inside my wallet to pay for my title and I see this folded gold card holder. I open it and it's a Starbucks gift card. It wasn't much, $10, but I thought well, good enough time to use it. I pay for my service and as I am signing the receipts, I quickly wrote a simple note to her. I folded the gold card holder and as I handed her the pen back, I thanked her for being friendly and being so helpful and gave her the gift card with the note inside, addressed to her personally. The smile on her face moved me. I turned and walked out.

It was a surreal morning capped by an even more stressful afternoon dealing with egos, challenges, and bad decisions. I didn't lose my shit. I wanted to. I really, really wanted to, but I didn't. I tried to make sure that I did not allow my situations to change my attitude. What started off as a severely wacky out-of-alignment day turned into a completely aligned and easy evening.

I just need to keep reminding myself to take a deep breath and remember to never allow your situation to control my manners.

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#perspective #outlook #manners