Back in high school, I spent one summer working as an office temp. I found that it is a job that I'm actually pretty good at. Well, except for trying to transfer calls on one of those complicated thing-ys they had at one office...but I disgress...
There's something, as crazy as it sounds, that is kind of relaxing about that sort of work. Especially as compared to being a pastor. Temping, as hectic as it may be, is a job generally that (1) lasts for a limited time, and thus you don't bear the weight of the entire company of you, (2) usually you're there to make everyone else's life a bit easier, which is a happy task to have and (3) you are usually given the least complicated (in mind-numbing) tasks in the place. Oh, and in addition to actually completing tasks, you're generally not expected to take your work home with you.
So...from time to time, and since I was such a smashing success at that, it's fun to try it back out. Today, I'm spending my day off sitting in a cubicle (which is only fun, I'm sure, since I'd don't normally inhabit one) "answering" calls and e-mails at the conference office about Annual Conference registration. I help with worship and some of the meal arrangements, and when Olivia, who coordinates it all, mentioned that she was feeling overwhelmed a bit (in the midst of all this going live, her mom had surgery)...I offered to help. I'm a dork. I know.
The thing is, I spend so much time as a pastor not really knowing if I'm helping...you can work really hard and long as a pastor and so many of your tasks are never completed. Even a delivered sermon merely leads into preparing for the next one. So it's kind of nice, actually, to just be sitting here, focused on the task at hand. The only thing is, the phone hasn't rung in a while, and the e-mails aren't flowing in...apparently last year they got so many e-mails the first day that it crashed the system. I told Olivia that perhaps people are calmer this year. Or perhaps, they're more worried about the great problems of the world, and a little less concerned about the glitches getting worked out THIS MOMENT.
Wouldn't it be nice if t really was because we're all just a bit calmer? Unfortunately, it's probably just because people are just behind this year, and aren't rushing to do much of anything...
Of course, even now I find myself doing all sorts of tasks in my own e-mail that aren't included in today's temping tasks...I can only stare at the gray wall of this cubicle for so long, after all, before even catching up on my own e-mail seems interesting.
And now, I know I'll appreciate the rest of my non-cubicle life that much more. I do think I'll come back and visit my cubicle though. It's a pretty soothing place. Especially while the whole rest of the office is empty and the conference staff are in a meeting...
Silence...
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