Yeah, But What Will You Do?

John didn’t want to say anything.

He was just getting on with his work from day to day. He kept his head down and just endeavoured to bury himself in the activities that needed completing. But no. He just couldn’t.

This was because of Lisa. Lisa was sat in the booth behind him and every day, without fail, at some point she would chat to any colleague that would give her the time of day about just how dreadful office affairs were. One day it would be the coffee. Another day it would be the people at head office. Another day it would be the line manager. Another day it would be that colleague who had been off sick with stress. There was always something for her to have a gripe about.

John went on enduring this for day after day, week after week and even month after month. It was the drip effect. John was the kind of guy that if he had a problem, first he would look to see what it was in greater detail to have a better understanding and then get the best advice he could get as to how to handle the problem. He steadily got a reputation in the office for his problem solving in calm and assured ways.

So it got to the point where John could not take it anymore. But, as with other problems he faced in the workplace, he first of all checked the problem in greater detail and then waited …

Sure enough on Tuesday afternoon, Lisa was holding court with two long-suffering colleagues about how poor things were in the office. John slowly turned around and drew closer to appear as though he was interested in hearing what she was saying. She was on a roll, completely oblivious to the look of boredome and dread in the eyes of her audience, other than John who nodded his head vigorously at times taking in what she was saying. Then he found his moment and asked,

“Yeah, but  what would you do, if you were in charge, Lisa?”

“What?”

“I was wondering what would you do if you were in charge?”

“Errrrrr …. err … well … you know … I would … just do things better. Anyone could do better than this bunch.”

“Sure. So what would you do?”

“I just told you. Just do things better.”

“How?”

“Errrrrmmmmmmm … well I don’t know, it can’t be that hard. You know … I’d just … well  …”

“… You’d just do things better.”

“Yeah.”

“Have you told them that?”

“You what?”

“Have you told them upstairs that you could just … you know … do things better?”

“Welll … errrr … well … you know … I’m busy at work. I don’t have the time to be …”

“You have the one-to-one review every month.”

“Yeah, but …”

“And there’s the team meetings!” one of the suffering colleagues chipped in helpfully.

“Plus they’re always encouraging us to let them know if we have ideas to … you know … do things better.” piped up the other colleague who saw which way the wind of the conversation was blowing.

“Yeah but … but … but I …”

“Oh don’t worry, Lisa. We know you’re busy here, Lisa. Probably too busy to .. you know … do things better. Oh look at the time, does anyone want a cuppa?” said John as the two colleagues eagerly volunteered to follow him to the much criticised coffee area.

Lisa was left in her seat, alone, still dumbstruck.

This didn’t stop Lisa for long, it’s just that she tended to take her conversations as far away from John and those two other colleagues as possible.

(Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash)

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden