I recently finished six of the hardest weeks at work I've ever had to deal with. I was filling in for the Buyer at work, who was out on Maternity Leave.
I was told that filling in would involve entering purchase orders into the system. And that's all. Piece of cake, I thought to myself. When Maria started training me, I realized she meant for me to do everything she does while she was out, even though she works 40 hours a week and I was only going to be working 20. Panic started to set in, and I seriously thought about telling them I just couldn't do it. But two things kept me from doing that.
1) When I was supposed to go back to work, and changed my mind three weeks beforehand, I felt like I let the owner down. He had always been very good to me and I felt bad about how incredibly disappointed he seemed in me when he found out I wasn't coming back. This seemed like a way I could make up for it, finally.
2) I don't want my boys to be quitters. I've been somewhat of a quitter all my life, and I wanted to prove to both myself and to them (one day), that I could tough something out even though it was really hard. I've downloaded a book called, "How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiousity and the Hidden Power of Character" by Paul Tough. His last name made me chuckle a little. There are many studies coming out now that even if your child is super smart, that's not enough to get him to succeed all the way through college and beyond. They have to develop a sense of determination and toughness, and confidence that they will see a project through to the very end no matter what obstacles they face.
This is something I could have used some help with as a teenager and after. I just stopped going to college the semester that would have been my junior year. It just all got too hard all of a sudden. I didn't have ANY gumption to try anymore. I ended up with a B, two Cs and one F at the end of it, quit school all together and started working full-time. I worked for four years, and something about that time changed me. I started to have common sense smarts, and developed tons of confidence that maybe I did have what it took to get through college after all. I went back and even though my grade point average was really hard to get back up, I graduated after two and a half years with mostly A's, a few B's and one stinking C.
I don't want my boys to have that lack of gumption, but I'm afraid they may come by it genetically. Gabriel has already shown signs of this quality even at his young age. So we will give them the tools, knowledge and living example to beat it. So, I put my head down, and tried to learn as much as I could while Maria was still at work. She received the news six weeks before her due date that she was dilated to a 1. Panic, panic, panic. But somehow that baby decided to stay in her nice warm place and didn't come out for another 3 weeks! When I started on my own the Tuesday morning after Zoe was born, I came home exhausted but felt pretty good about how it had gone.
And so it went for six weeks. I had a few really rough days where I barely had time to go to the bathroom or eat, and I made a couple of mistakes here and there. I was mentally exhausted when I picked up the boys and sometimes just sat on the couch with a catatonic stare in the afternoons. But nothing catastrophic happened, and I began to gain respect from everyone in the company as I handled things. I received much help and some huge complements from Mike, the owner, and several of of the salespeople told me I was doing a great job. My boss, Donna, who I had overheard talking about me to someone regarding how scatterbrained I was and that she didn't think I could handle taking over Maria's job, even told me halfway through that she thought I was doing a terrific job.
Now Maria has been back for three weeks, and I've been a little sad that I had to hand the reigns back to her. I felt like what I was doing was pretty important. I felt respected and needed, and challenged in a way I haven't been in a long time. But I'm still riding on the high that I did my best and finished the job. And I shared with Gabriel the whole story, in the hope that it would help him get through his days at school. I'm hoping also that I won't be so afraid now to find a new full-time, challenging job when the time comes. I can learn something new even at my age!
