12 Days of Christmas Stories – Final Day! Merry Christmas

By December 25, 2018 December 27th, 2018 12 Days of Christmas

Merry Christmas!

Every year I pick a personal “Theme” for my year. Something for me to focus on, to work on, and a space to grow in. This year, my theme was “Believe” – that’s it. Throughout all of these emails you’ve probably heard me talking about believing in a multitude of ways. Today, on Christmas, I’m going to talk about my belief in Him (the Big Guy), my faith.

I received a call from Patricia at 5:30am, her car was broke down on the side of the road and she was going to be late or miss work, she wasn’t sure. She just moved here from Alabama so she doesn’t know her surroundings. I asked if she was safe, and she was. She was choked up, perhaps she had been crying? I wasn’t sure. In our biz, I don’t always know if I’m being told the truth or it’s a lie because it’s the 4th of July weekend and sunny out. RIGHT?! Either way, I said, “don’t worry, thank you for calling, I’ll make sure our customer knows and this will only result in a small hiccup. I’m headed to a meeting right now at a customer but I’ll call you after it and see what your game plan is”

At 6:30 I called her again, she told me she was walking on 94 somewhere near Maple Grove. I could hear cars flying by her on the freeway – this wasn’t a lie. I told her I’ve never picked anyone up from the side of the road, but if she’s comfortable with it, I’m coming to get her. She said ok.

When I got to her, she was still walking and she was bawling. She got in and I said “Good morning!” and she said she has anxiety and apologized for crying. I told her I’d be in the same boat if I were her. I told her we were going to push the reset button on her day and grab coffee and bagels for her co-workers. It also gave her a moment to freshen up before heading into work. While driving I learned she came here from Alabama because her husband’s company closed down there and he was the only one offered a transfer and he took it. They’re living in a hotel room in Rogers so he can bike to work and she can use the car for work just while they get settled. Once settled, they’ll get their boys up here from back home. A 15 year old MVP Football athlete with straight A’s, and twin 8 year old boys going into 2nd grade that love to play guitar. All of the boys are excited for snow! She got her degree in culinary arts because she wanted to prove to herself she could finish school, and she took this job because she wanted something stable and consistent so she could get their family affairs in order.

I told her I knew she wasn’t telling me a lie when I heard the cars on the freeway. I asked her if she knew how long it would take to get to work from where she stalled?  She said her GPS told her 4 hours of walking! I said, “and you walked anyhow!?” and she said she didn’t know what else she could do. She doesn’t know anybody here, she can’t fix her car, and so, she walked. Can we talk for a second about the courage it took to do that? She could have been paralyzed by her morning and instead of doing nothing, she put one foot in front of the other to do something.

I had never met her, nor did I know anything about her prior to that call at 5:30am. I just happened to have our on call phone on hand and fortunately didn’t miss her call. Since I didn’t know her, I was curious how she found us and so I asked. I was particularly curious since there’s a different staffing service next door to her hotel. She said, “I don’t know, divine intervention I guess?” I told her I believe too and I think this morning was pretty dang cool.

Let’s flash forward now that we know more of the facts. She was within the first few weeks of her assignment when we met, she turned out to be one of our star performers and was recognized by our customer as a stand out employee…now they ask us to duplicate her in future placements! She was hired on perm and is cross trained in multiple departments. She joined us last week and when she came in everyone knew who she was and was excited to meet her. She even brought her husband so we got to meet him too!

Last night was our Christmas Eve service done by candlelight: “The light shines in the darkness”  à there is good everywhere we look, I find my light in my foundation of faith and my belief. So often people say to me “this stuff always happens to you!” and when I hear that, I laugh. It ‘just happens’ to all of us, but are we all paying attention and looking for it?

I hope you’ve found a little light throughout these last 12 days of stories, and I truly hope you’ve been able to enjoy the holiday season J

Merry Christmas, and Cheers to a happy new year in 2019!

Until next year,

-Heather

One Comment

Leave a Reply

Sign Up for Our Newsletter
Get the Latest News from The Vision Companies!
Your Information will never be shared with any third party.