Random acts of kindness

My day didn't start so well. A crash on the highway created a traffic jam, which meant I would be late for work. But it turned out to be pretty representative of what this day is going to turn out: I managed to catch the news about it on the radio moments before the last exit out and I caught it by the skin of my teeth (some serious work with my car's defective breaks was involved). So I pulled through just fine.

And the rest of the day was the same. The über Ministry (=supervising entity) complained that the audits I'm running should go faster (they clearly don't care two shits about quality), so I kind of threw a fit a little bit. (<-- is not really ashamed). I picked up the phone and gave the lady who wrote it "the speech" ("oh, why don't you bring your ass here and check how this pile of shit you got me landed with looks like!"-style, though a tiny bit more polite (not much), I do, after all, still need my job) - and I don't care whose boss she is, no one's going to tell me that I don't work fast enough, I'm fucking burning through those files! So I strangled her long enough to have her promise me that she will call my boss and have her provide me with some back up.

In the end it meant that I had to train a bunch of people in a very short time, my boss included, to do what I do. Honestly, after the training, I didn't know whether I was exceptionally smart of just super-dumb, cause no one seemed to understand a word of what I was saying. They all stared at me as if I was from another galaxy and my boss asked me a few times "You have master's degree, right?" - as if she wanted to be sure you needed one to understand what I was doing. Honestly, you don't, but it's definitely not a matter of a 2 hour training, it's a lot of learning-by-doing (mistakes as well) and it's really hard work. Terra incognita for some, it would seem, especially to those whose daily assignments consist of typing self-glorifying e-mails and wandering from one pointless meeting to another. So I guess hard core number-management and content verification was lost on them but the training still gave me an ego-boost because it was clear that my work is not for idiots. ;)

And then after I was stupid enough to use my lunch break to try and pay the bills and came up several hundred euros short - again! -  so I was slightly depressed. It was all a bit much. The high-precision work, a year of chasing dead-lines, the boring and stressful driving, no time for the kids, the constant lack of any real money that would at least allow us to live comfortably. I just had it for a while.

And then - just like that - a mail pops into my Inbox. It was from a lady that's one of my clients - I audit their report against our rules and regulations, send her the notes and she makes the corrections. And because she's trying really hard, though not always succeeding, I make sure to review her report among the first and give her all the back up she needs. Even if it sometimes means the advice how to cheat the system. ;) Perfectly legal, mind you.

And we rant over the bureaucracy to one another and we sometimes laugh like idiots at the bullshit we throw at them - that's right, often I'm helpless in the face of insane requirements our administration has for those on-the-field teams and I have to send a set of mindless instructions their way, just to have her call me and tell me that she knows it wasn't my stupid idea, but - what in God's name is someone up there thinking!? So I tell her - interlaced with a number of ranting-borderline-cursing words, cause that's just the way our relationship is - that I have no idea and that we're clearly ruled by a bunch of monkeys who learned how to read and write (but not very well) and now they think it's their destiny to make this planet go to the dogs.

So - that lady seems to think I'm doing one hell of a job and she wrote me that she's sending me a small present to thank me for the great cooperation. From her, personally, but she'll put it in a company envelope to save the mail expenses. Now, get this: this lady comes from the poorest region of my country. As financial auditor I have an insight into her salary, she earns less than half of what I do and has the same level of education. How she and her family manage, is beyond me. And that lady is sending me a present. Now, how is it, that it's always the poorest people that are the most heart-warming and the most generous?

I can't even begin to say how she brightened my day. It was recognition to my work, my ability to keep my human touch even though I'm working on a project with very strict rules and regulations; it restored my faith in humanity for some time to come. Thank you, lady. Not only for the present, you've given me much more. I don't even care for the present, but I'll take it, just to honor you. Whatever it is. It's the thought that counts. I'll make sure I'm headed her way for on-the-field control and I'm taking a big fat chocolate with me. She earned it for being herself and making me feel like I'm a worthy human being and life is, after all, worth living. It's those random acts of kindness that make all the difference. :)

I hope I can be someone's ray of sunshine somewhere down the line. I'd like that.

---

Depressed, destroyed, with empty heart

once more I'm left behind.

Confusion. Terror. Anger. Grief.

It hurts so much to be alive...

~

My dragons roar, my mind is blind

with darkness falling all around.

I hide inside myself to heal -

and still there's no hope to be found.

~

And then I tell myself to breathe

another day, another time.

To lift my head up and to dream,

to fly until I reach the sky.

~

One breath for hope, one breath for life,

one breath for love we hope to find.

Not follow, but to lead

this brutal dance that we call life.

~
In. Out. In-Out.

In. Out. In-Out.

In. Out. In-Out.

In. Out. In-Out.

In.
Out.