LJ Idol: I Can't Believe I Did That! (Week 21, Topic 1)
therealljidol Entry #1: "I can't believe I actually did that!"
This topic was taken from Season 3, Round 10.
All of us can remember our first job. Some will reminisce and sigh wistfully. Others would sooner scratch it off their resume, block it from their memory, and move as far away from that first job as possible. I did all of the above.
After I graduated from college, I needed to take the next logical step by finding gainful employment. I fluffed up my pathetic resume and ironed my lady-suit for potential interviews. My life, however, works much like my short attention span; instead of finding a job, I found the man who later became the love of my life. Instead of traveling to future job sites, I was traveling the country in the cab of a big rig. All good things must come to an end; by August, my mother's nagging became quite persistent. I scanned the newspaper and applied to dozens of places, from hotels to hospitals to schools.
Finally, in mid-September, I became the secretary of a small church in my town. I should have known the job would be wrong for me when I violated the ninth commandment during the interview. I had smiled and said I knew Powerpoint. And on that condition, they hired me, the liar who had never used Powerpoint in her entire life. I probably won't go to Hell for my white lie embellishing my skills, but everything else about my job hopped into the handbasket.
I was under the impression that I'd be working with a pastor. But the pastor had left the church along with the secretary and some of their congregation due to some drama. So I worked in solitude typing and folding Sunday bulletins, making and taking phone calls, and reading Christian romance novels I found in the library. I also taught myself Powerpoint and designed weekly presentations for the services.
Once I had a week of church work under my belt, an interim pastor moved into the manse with his wife. It couldn't have been worse timing--a friend had given me my first drink of moonshine the night before I met the pastor. Holy hangover, Batman! Reverend Toad (name changed) was a spritely, handsome man in his 70s, wearing a corduroy hat and a quick grin. We all liked him immediately. When he found out that I was a Christian and attended a nearby church, he said, "Good, good. Because going to church means nothing if you don't have Jesus here." and he thumped his chest with his fist. Then he prayed over us and said, "It's your turn."
I gulped. "I don't like to pray out loud," I stuttered. But Pastor Toad insisted that it was a requirement. "God is your friend! And you talk to your friends out loud, don't you?" My heart sunk as I grew a bit angry inside. I smiled wanly and returned to my own office with hunched shoulders. Silently, I prayed, "God, you know I love You. I just don't want to pray with this guy. I wish he'd go away." I hastily wished for a new pastor.
The next morning, I found the church dark and the parking lot full of stricken church-goers. "What happened? What are all these people doing here?" I asked a plump lady.
"Pastor Toad had a heart attack last night! He was sent to the hospital!"
Oh.my.God.
In the days following, I barely slept or ate. I composed my tasks in a blur. I visited Pastor Toad in the hospital, hugging his wife and listening to his raspy breath as he lay in a coma. Pastor Toad died a week later. I realize the tragedy was a coincidence, but it didn't stop me from feeling like a jerk of heavenly proportions. The situation has made me very careful what I utter in my prayers! My own pastor, when hearing the news, clapped me on the back and said, "Boy, I'm glad you're not MY secretary! Haha." I laughed, too, but I really hope people don't think I'm wishing for their swift deaths when they make me angry!
With no new pastor, even an interim, for the next several months, I grew bored with the Christian romance novels and organizing the filing cabinets for the 7th time. So one day, with way too much spare time on my hands, I fashioned a fake church bulletin out of my regular template. I decided I'd make it a parody of everything I found amusing in organized religion. After I finished typing it up, I printed it on a single piece of paper and deleted it from the computer to cover my tracks. Even though it took me less than an hour to type it and I had finished my work, I knew I would get in a LOT of trouble if the bulletin was ever found.
I brought it home to show my mother, and she, one of the most religious people I know, found it hysterical. She asked me to make one copy so she could bring it to (our laid-back Presbyterian) church and show the choir. So I returned it to my work-church hidden in a stack of my personal papers.
Never create a satire/parody of a church bulletin and then accidentally leave it at church at the same time a woman who has no sense of humor is Xeroxing things in the office.
The bulletin vanished, and no amount of weeping and gnashing of teeth would bring it back. It took two months for my extremely passive-aggressive supervisor to mention the scandalous pamphlet. It had been read aloud at the Board of Trustees meeting, and needless to say, everyone was "really unhappy" over it. They cut my already-paltry hours and nothing more was said. I couldn't believe I had done something as blasphemous as mocking my job, and I couldn't believe I had done something so foolish as to get caught. I felt a mixture of shame and outrage, but I couldn't leave my job. I needed the money, and nothing else looked very promising in the newspaper. Besides, I had told myself I'd stay for at least a year.
I lasted 7 months at my job. "God will make a way, when there seems to be no way," a popular worship song goes. God sent me a "way" in the form of a car accident. I walked away from it with a few bumps and bruises and some broken glasses, but I made a decision that day to quit wasting my life with my increasingly unhappy job. The love of my life asked me to move to Kentucky with him where jobs would be more plentiful. After consulting my mother and scores of others, I put in my two weeks' notice and left the last week of April.
Unlike Lot's wife, I never looked back.
This topic was taken from Season 3, Round 10.
All of us can remember our first job. Some will reminisce and sigh wistfully. Others would sooner scratch it off their resume, block it from their memory, and move as far away from that first job as possible. I did all of the above.
After I graduated from college, I needed to take the next logical step by finding gainful employment. I fluffed up my pathetic resume and ironed my lady-suit for potential interviews. My life, however, works much like my short attention span; instead of finding a job, I found the man who later became the love of my life. Instead of traveling to future job sites, I was traveling the country in the cab of a big rig. All good things must come to an end; by August, my mother's nagging became quite persistent. I scanned the newspaper and applied to dozens of places, from hotels to hospitals to schools.
Finally, in mid-September, I became the secretary of a small church in my town. I should have known the job would be wrong for me when I violated the ninth commandment during the interview. I had smiled and said I knew Powerpoint. And on that condition, they hired me, the liar who had never used Powerpoint in her entire life. I probably won't go to Hell for my white lie embellishing my skills, but everything else about my job hopped into the handbasket.
I was under the impression that I'd be working with a pastor. But the pastor had left the church along with the secretary and some of their congregation due to some drama. So I worked in solitude typing and folding Sunday bulletins, making and taking phone calls, and reading Christian romance novels I found in the library. I also taught myself Powerpoint and designed weekly presentations for the services.
Once I had a week of church work under my belt, an interim pastor moved into the manse with his wife. It couldn't have been worse timing--a friend had given me my first drink of moonshine the night before I met the pastor. Holy hangover, Batman! Reverend Toad (name changed) was a spritely, handsome man in his 70s, wearing a corduroy hat and a quick grin. We all liked him immediately. When he found out that I was a Christian and attended a nearby church, he said, "Good, good. Because going to church means nothing if you don't have Jesus here." and he thumped his chest with his fist. Then he prayed over us and said, "It's your turn."
I gulped. "I don't like to pray out loud," I stuttered. But Pastor Toad insisted that it was a requirement. "God is your friend! And you talk to your friends out loud, don't you?" My heart sunk as I grew a bit angry inside. I smiled wanly and returned to my own office with hunched shoulders. Silently, I prayed, "God, you know I love You. I just don't want to pray with this guy. I wish he'd go away." I hastily wished for a new pastor.
The next morning, I found the church dark and the parking lot full of stricken church-goers. "What happened? What are all these people doing here?" I asked a plump lady.
"Pastor Toad had a heart attack last night! He was sent to the hospital!"
Oh.my.God.
In the days following, I barely slept or ate. I composed my tasks in a blur. I visited Pastor Toad in the hospital, hugging his wife and listening to his raspy breath as he lay in a coma. Pastor Toad died a week later. I realize the tragedy was a coincidence, but it didn't stop me from feeling like a jerk of heavenly proportions. The situation has made me very careful what I utter in my prayers! My own pastor, when hearing the news, clapped me on the back and said, "Boy, I'm glad you're not MY secretary! Haha." I laughed, too, but I really hope people don't think I'm wishing for their swift deaths when they make me angry!
With no new pastor, even an interim, for the next several months, I grew bored with the Christian romance novels and organizing the filing cabinets for the 7th time. So one day, with way too much spare time on my hands, I fashioned a fake church bulletin out of my regular template. I decided I'd make it a parody of everything I found amusing in organized religion. After I finished typing it up, I printed it on a single piece of paper and deleted it from the computer to cover my tracks. Even though it took me less than an hour to type it and I had finished my work, I knew I would get in a LOT of trouble if the bulletin was ever found.
I brought it home to show my mother, and she, one of the most religious people I know, found it hysterical. She asked me to make one copy so she could bring it to (our laid-back Presbyterian) church and show the choir. So I returned it to my work-church hidden in a stack of my personal papers.
Never create a satire/parody of a church bulletin and then accidentally leave it at church at the same time a woman who has no sense of humor is Xeroxing things in the office.
The bulletin vanished, and no amount of weeping and gnashing of teeth would bring it back. It took two months for my extremely passive-aggressive supervisor to mention the scandalous pamphlet. It had been read aloud at the Board of Trustees meeting, and needless to say, everyone was "really unhappy" over it. They cut my already-paltry hours and nothing more was said. I couldn't believe I had done something as blasphemous as mocking my job, and I couldn't believe I had done something so foolish as to get caught. I felt a mixture of shame and outrage, but I couldn't leave my job. I needed the money, and nothing else looked very promising in the newspaper. Besides, I had told myself I'd stay for at least a year.
I lasted 7 months at my job. "God will make a way, when there seems to be no way," a popular worship song goes. God sent me a "way" in the form of a car accident. I walked away from it with a few bumps and bruises and some broken glasses, but I made a decision that day to quit wasting my life with my increasingly unhappy job. The love of my life asked me to move to Kentucky with him where jobs would be more plentiful. After consulting my mother and scores of others, I put in my two weeks' notice and left the last week of April.
Unlike Lot's wife, I never looked back.