The Big Scary You - Part 3

 The Big Scary You - Part 3 

The last Sunday I worked there; I didn’t even know it until the afternoon. I was at my in-law’s place and it was a wonderful day. As we were leaving, there was an air show taking place that day, and we could see the jets doing their thing in the afternoon sky. They were doing all types of stunts, and they looked awesome. All of a sudden, I had the thought, “gee, I don’t really want to go to work today”. Now that might not mean anything to most, but honestly, the whole time I had been working for Sandra, I had never had that thought. I had never wished that I could just take a day off on a whim, and the thought surprised me. The more I pondered this thought the more it grew in me, and I started to think about the recent events that had taken place.

I knew that my time was coming to a close, but I wasn’t sure exactly when. I had told my husband that if things didn’t improve in the next few weeks, that I would be leaving and so we had discussed it. He didn’t usually like the idea of me giving up work, especially right now as it was getting close to Christmas and as always, we would be needing the money. I can remember having just put a few hundred dollars’ worth of Christmas presents on layby a few weeks before and so they needed to be paid for….

But as I pondered all of this, it became increasingly clear that I just did not have the strength to go to work that afternoon. When we got home, I told my husband, I really don’t think that I can do this anymore. I need to quit…I am going to have to phone Sandra and tell her…

I went through agony making this decision and from that point on I vacillated between going in and just getting through the day and phoning up and quitting. In the end I knew that I could not work for Sandra any longer. So after about 45 minutes of deliberating, I made the dreaded phone call. My stomach was pretty much really upset by this time and I felt like vomiting. And of course, that call never went well. None of the “this is going to go ok”, I knew that it wouldn’t be, and it wasn’t. At first, Sandra didn’t sound that upset when I said that I was going to quit. She said something along the lines of, “so you are going to finish up the week and then go? To which I replied, “no I was planning on not coming in tonight.”

Well, that was the end of the “nice” part of the conversation. I was called a few choice words, selfish and irresponsible being a couple of them. After making me feel terrible I decided that I would go in for the night, as my last night with her. I needed to get the keys to both sites to her anyway, but I would usually do the bigger site first. She asked to meet me at the smaller one, and so I went there first. She had told me that she would meet me at the second one, but she turned up not long after I got to the first one, I had only just finished the bins. I was not looking forward to seeing her, but the show must go on, and I had to face her. Of course, she didn’t look very happy when she arrived. But she calmed down and we talked. She couldn’t understand something. I had agreed to give her a month’s notice, apparently. No, for me I honestly could not recollect saying that I would. So, she was upset with me over that. She had told me that she was going to do that.  She would do that if she were ever to leave, but as far as I knew, she never told me that I would have to give a month’s notice to her. Obviously, she thought she had told me that. I don’t know, it was all very strange to me. I really did not think that I had to give her any notice at all. I was only a sub-contractor, not even an employee.

Also, she then told me that she was planning on giving me the month of December off as she needed to sort out a few things financially. This annoyed me a bit. See, Sandra, you were planning on changing things to suit yourself yet again. Oh well. So she told me I could go, but I felt a bit sorry for her, as she had obviously been crying. I ended up working with her and helping her finish both sites, most of it in silence.

A week later, I received my final pay. So many things became apparent to me as I thought about what had happened. I especially remembered that small still voice that had spoken to me and told me that I would get more work. The light had finally come on. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that God had spoken to me, it was so clear, and I never had any doubt about that. That is unusual. I never and I mean NEVER had ANY doubt, that this would come to pass. The whole way through Christmas, into the new year, and right up till I finished cleaning my Mother’s house for sale (yet another story), in May of this year, that word remained strong within me – “you will get more work”. And, like clockwork, I did. The word came to pass, and I knew immediately when it did. Spot on!

So what else can I tell you about my time with Sandra? Why was it always like “the Big Scary You” lurking around the corner as I worked there? No matter what I did while I was working, I had strength right up until the very end, when my strength slowly left me, and I had to leave. No matter what scary things you must go through, you can do it and face it with confidence, if It is meant to be. It might be hard, it might make you feel sick, it might try and make you second guess yourself, and your work, like it did me, it might try and take your confidence away, and that might even work for a while, but when you get out the other side, and step out and do that hard thing, when you know it is time to do what you need to do (in my case it was leaving at the appointed time, for you it might be something else),  you will see and rejoice in the fact that you were made to conquer these hard things, and they wont last forever.

The job that I have now pays well and I get paid the right amount for the hours that I work. I have even been complimented by the boss that I have now, saying that me (and the other lady I work with) are two of the best cleaners he has, and he is really pleased with how clean our school is! (Yes, I am back to cleaning schools again, something that I must be called too lol).

That is a story for another time, perhaps. But what I can say is that I don’t regret my time with Sandra. She taught me a lot. She wasn’t a bad person, just different, and the job was more of a lesson that was temporary, rather than something that was permanent. We were built for the hard things, no matter how scary they may be, we can do it, and we will be rewarded with something better as we learn from them and overcome. And when we are given a word about something where we have no doubt in us about it, we can rest assured that it will definitely come to pass

 

Jules