Adding a Song to the Message

Seemingly, part of building relationships with one's office colleagues is "sharing a part" of oneself with them.

On my personal telephone, I have a singing voice mail message, which changes according to the time of the year or my own personal interests at the time.

E.g., my current voice mail message on my personal telephone is set to the tune of "Johnny Appleseed":

The Lord is good to me,
And so I thank the Lord
For giving me
The things I need,
The sun and the rain, and an
Answering machine!
The Lord is good to me.

Many people who call seem to like these singing messages.

What if I had a singing message for my work phone? Over the years, I've developed plenty of answering machine jingles with content that would be completely "office-appropriate." E.g., to the tune of the Chili's baby back ribs commercial:

If you leave a message, I will
Call you back, call you back, call you back.
Please leave a message
And I'll call you back.

Some could argue that this would be completely unprofessional. But I think that it would bring a smile to my colleagues.

Note: You may recall that my current office voice mail message already gotten positive reviews. C.f., my 06May11 post. How much more would be gained by adding a song?

Hallway Encouragement

I have known that my colleague "Agnes" was Catholic. But we'd rarely discussed our faith.

Today, though, out of the blue, she sent me a message with the subject "Fw: Marriage in Maryland Needs Your Support Now."

Preceding a detailed request from the Maryland Catholic Conference, she included a brief note:

Phil, Not sure if you if support this point of view but if you do make your voice heard. Agnes

I think that it is very good to be able to share perspectives on this kind of issue with colleagues, and to be able to support each other even at work.

Therefore, I was very pleased to receive Agnes' message.

An Extra Ounce

I had a pretty disappointing weekend, during which some exchanges didn't work out at all as I had wanted, and right now I am feeling fairly glum. I didn't sleep well last night and I'm physically and emotionally weary. While my work provides some welcome distraction, in an office by myself is one of the last places where I want to be.

There is a temptation for me to allow this restlessness to trickle into my interactions with my colleagues. Or, even if I am able to maintain a professional level of courtesy and attention, I feel like I'm on a steep slope of not bothering to seek to treat them with the love of Christ.

On the other hand, however, I suppose that it is possible that my sufferings could actually enhance my efforts to treat them with Christ's love. In a sense, my sufferings could be an "extra ounce" to add to specific efforts to show them respect, genuineness, and concern.

Amidst my tough times, I have decided that I am offering my sufferings to the Lord's "discretionary fund," to be used for the benefit of whoever He wishes - and I suspect that it is possible that some of my colleagues could be among the recipients.

Being "The Guy Who ..."

Yesterday morning, I went through the wringer as I gave a dry run of a presentation to my colleagues. They were picky as could be - They didn't like the size of the plots, the style of the font, the order of the slides.

Their critique ultimately will help me to prepare for the external presentation that I am scheduled to give next month. But it is nevertheless somewhat overwhelming.

About halfway through the ninety minutes of scrutiny, I felt about ready to call it quits. "OK folks, I get the point, I need to completely start it over, Can we just skip the last ten slides? I'm ready to go check my email and eat lunch." At least temporarily, I wanted to forget that this presentation existed at all.

But then I took a deep breath. Trying to be an undercover missionary makes these situations a little different.

It is bad enough to possibly be "the guy who has a prayer card on his office wall, but is incompetent at presentations." But now I was also on the verge of being "the guy who has a prayer card on his office wall, is incompetent at presentations, and also gives up in the face of criticism."

Instead, I would rather be "the guy who has the prayer card on his office wall, might not be perfect at first, but works hard to do his best." So I did my best to attentively field their suggestions.

Commonplace Praise

Months ago, my sister Gina gave me a book called "Abandonment to Divine Providence" and insisted that I should read it. I started to read it, but only made it few a few dozen pages.

This evening, I restarted reading that book. In the very first reflection, Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade includes a comment on the Blessed Mother that caught my attention:

No matter what her jobs were - ordinary, commonplace, or seemingly more important ones - they revealed to her, sometimes quite clearly, sometimes obscurely, the activity of the Almighty and were an opportunity for her to praise God.

Tomorrow at work, when it seems as though my jobs are ordinary or commonplace, I will try to be attentive anew to the activity of the Almighty and to allow those jobs to bring praise to Him.

Happy Birthday Mary!

As it has for the last three days, it was pouring rain this morning, so I scurried quickly beneath the overhang.

I hopped over a few puddles, then went into the Dunkin' Donuts in the shopping center next to my office, and I bought a box of 25 munchkins.

Just before 9 AM, I arrived at my office and put the donuts in the room where everyone goes to pick up the papers that they've printed. Everyone knows that food left here has been offered to everyone.

By 11 AM, the donuts were gone.

Happy birthday Blessed Mother!

Labor Day!

Some may point out that one of the main points of weekday work is to point to the leisure of Sunday, the day of the Resurrection. We work during the week in order to better celebrate Sunday.

Therein, a day to commemorate labor and its productivity may be too much, may misplace the spotlight, and may miss the point.

But I think that celebrating Labor Day actually is quite in line and has a very good point. By not going to work today - instead, I'm at home with my family in Pennsylvania - I indeed hoped to point towards the intrinsic value of my weekday labor, which is importantly linked and points to Sunday.

Indirectly but also uniquely, Labor Day has pointed me to Sunday and therein has helped to point me to the full importance of my work.

Hosting a meeting, with a servant's heart

When several collaborators from Peru came to our laboratory this week to find out more about what we were doing with their data, some folks on our project seemed a little irritated to have to devote so much time to the meetings. But "Bill" took it in stride.

As the meetings began, Bill made sure to ask our visitors, "We are very grateful that you have come so far and we want to make sure that your visit is as worthwhile as possible. What do you hope to take away from these meetings?" Attentively and deliberately, he was giving them control. He was positioning us as "servants" to their needs.

Earlier, the question had arose about what we should do at lunchtime. Should we all pay for ourselves? Should we try to charge the lunch to our project budget? Bill was emphatic. "They are our guests. We will treat them." Ultimately, he treated all of us from his own money. Again, his actions bespoke a servanthood towards our collaborators.

On a technical level, the meetings were very helpful. But perhaps the most important things that I learned were from Bill's example. If I am ever in his position, towards the front a meeting with international visitors, I will try to follow his example.

Sharing well what I know

In a 2009 encyclical on love and truth, Pope Benedict XVI wrote

Knowing is not simply a material act, since the object that is known always conceals something beyond the empirical datum. All our knowledge, even the most simple, is always a minor miracle, since it can never be fully explained by the material instruments that we apply to it. In every truth there is something more than we would have expected, in the love that we receive there is always an element that surprises us. We should never cease to marvel at these things (Caritas in Veritate, #77).

I have the opportunity to learn a lot of things and gain a lot of knowledge during my work. What lies beyond my empirical data? In what ways to I acknowledge the "minor miracles" of my knowledge? In what ways do I "marvel" at the things that I learn in my job?

To do my job well, I must share much of what I know, openly and effectively. But, beyond this responsibility, how do I share a sense of wonder with my colleagues? How can I do it in humility?

My birthday!

Today is my 28th birthday, and I took the day off from work, as an act of celebration.

Claire and I went to Mass this morning, then on a hike along the Potomac River in Virginia. On the way home, we had burgers at Fuddruckers on H Street and made a quick trip to the Portrait Gallery. Tonight, I will return to Chinatown for a Holy Hour of Adoration for young adults ("Christ in the City"). In a few minutes, I might go for a jog. I have also been writing postcards and listening to bluegrass music. Today is a festival of all of the things that I enjoy and are important to me!

It is not as though I have a surplus of free time right now in my job. I might go into the office on Saturday to keep pace on a few projects.

But the Lord has showered me with many blessings and I would like to do a good job acknowledging them. Being able to work is one of those blessings, and in some indirect but definitive way, not going to work today is a way for me to acknowledge it.

"Thank You, Lord, for the gift of my life, the gift of another year past (and the hope of another year to come), and the gift of a birthday."