A Training Mission
Every morning I wake up, pledging that today will be different. Today I will take deep breaths. I will count to ten. I will remain personally disengaged. I will be calm, consistent, gentle but firm. Today things will turn around. Today we will work together. Tonight, I will not be so exhausted and ready to cry.
Then I step out of the bedroom. And it begins.
When I worked at the Happiest Place on Earth, as most places of employment do, we had a breakroom. In the breakroom you could be whoever you wanted. You could eat, slouch, swear, remove annoying costume accessories, grow facial hair if you had time, vent about the crazy guest who just asked when the rain was going to stop or just frown if you needed to get a frown out of your system...the breakroom was a place of rest. Just one door separated us from "the stage," and once we walked through that door, we had to be on, all the time.
Every morning, my bedroom door reminds me of that stage door. Once I walk through it in the morning, I have to be on. Little people are watching me do my job, all day long. And this job carries a lot more weight than that other one did. I didn't run the risk of scarring anyone for life if I messed up my script or leaned against a railing in public. I wasn't molding lives and shaping character and modeling grace there. I was playing, and other people got to watch.
I think about what that job would have been like if the guests were allowed to just barge into the breakroom before I'd had breakfast or coffee or a shower and start demanding stuff from me. "Can you get my breakfast? Do you know where my PE shirt is? My sister ripped my book!"
Or, what if I showed a guest to their seat, and they gave me 18 reasons why they'd like to sit in another seat, or not sit at all, or 14 requests in escalating levels of urgency to hold the microphone themselves. What if I was giving my 22-minute spiel and the guest tugged at my shirt and called my name the entire time? What if they did it all day long? What if the same guest showed up every day, argued with everything I asked them to do, every single day, and there was not a single thing I could do about it? What if they only did it to me?
I see two possibilities there. One: The guest would be asked to leave the park and never return (not real likely), or, two: I'd be fired or jailed for snapping one day.
Which leaves me with a conundrum. What do I do, when that guest lives in my house?
I know there are those who say it's a parenting problem. Just tell the child "no" or to be quiet or to go to their room or that they don't get to go to birthday parties or whatever. To those people I say: you don't know my daughter. I have done ALL of that. Over and over and over again. But this amazing, beautiful child is the definition of persistence. She is a criminal defense lawyer, a used car salesman, a telemarketer and a cruise director all wrapped up into one little package, dressed in the fabric of an entrepreneur and tied up with the thread of an actress.
Sometimes, my heart breaks for her as I watch her try to manage all of this stuff going on in her head - seeing how much she wants to please and serve, but how desperately she wants it done her way. And there are times when I think that letting her have it her way is okay...but without fail, that backfires on me. This child recognizes a crack in the armor from the other side of town and she will not miss an opportunity to exploit it. I really don't believe it's intentional. I truly think she just can't help herself.
So all day long, I am playing both offense and defense, trapped in a sales office in negotiations in which I don't plan to compromise, actively making plans that will take 3 times longer to accomplish when the haggling is factored in, eyeing the breakroom door and wondering when I will get bumped back there.
The hardest part - and this is where I broke into tears with friends last night - is that every day I realize that the very traits about her that make me crazy are the ones God's given me that allow me to accomplish anything. So rather than disciplining the persistence out of her (teaching her "not to be me" and demonstrating my unbelief that God has given us these "gifts" for a reason), my mission has to be to help her to learn to use her powers for good and not evil - and that is where it changes from a discipline issue to a lifelong training mission. There is no breakroom secluded enough to hide from that job. Thank God for grace, or I'd have been fired a long time ago.
Then I step out of the bedroom. And it begins.
When I worked at the Happiest Place on Earth, as most places of employment do, we had a breakroom. In the breakroom you could be whoever you wanted. You could eat, slouch, swear, remove annoying costume accessories, grow facial hair if you had time, vent about the crazy guest who just asked when the rain was going to stop or just frown if you needed to get a frown out of your system...the breakroom was a place of rest. Just one door separated us from "the stage," and once we walked through that door, we had to be on, all the time.
Every morning, my bedroom door reminds me of that stage door. Once I walk through it in the morning, I have to be on. Little people are watching me do my job, all day long. And this job carries a lot more weight than that other one did. I didn't run the risk of scarring anyone for life if I messed up my script or leaned against a railing in public. I wasn't molding lives and shaping character and modeling grace there. I was playing, and other people got to watch.
I think about what that job would have been like if the guests were allowed to just barge into the breakroom before I'd had breakfast or coffee or a shower and start demanding stuff from me. "Can you get my breakfast? Do you know where my PE shirt is? My sister ripped my book!"
Or, what if I showed a guest to their seat, and they gave me 18 reasons why they'd like to sit in another seat, or not sit at all, or 14 requests in escalating levels of urgency to hold the microphone themselves. What if I was giving my 22-minute spiel and the guest tugged at my shirt and called my name the entire time? What if they did it all day long? What if the same guest showed up every day, argued with everything I asked them to do, every single day, and there was not a single thing I could do about it? What if they only did it to me?
I see two possibilities there. One: The guest would be asked to leave the park and never return (not real likely), or, two: I'd be fired or jailed for snapping one day.
Which leaves me with a conundrum. What do I do, when that guest lives in my house?
I know there are those who say it's a parenting problem. Just tell the child "no" or to be quiet or to go to their room or that they don't get to go to birthday parties or whatever. To those people I say: you don't know my daughter. I have done ALL of that. Over and over and over again. But this amazing, beautiful child is the definition of persistence. She is a criminal defense lawyer, a used car salesman, a telemarketer and a cruise director all wrapped up into one little package, dressed in the fabric of an entrepreneur and tied up with the thread of an actress.
Sometimes, my heart breaks for her as I watch her try to manage all of this stuff going on in her head - seeing how much she wants to please and serve, but how desperately she wants it done her way. And there are times when I think that letting her have it her way is okay...but without fail, that backfires on me. This child recognizes a crack in the armor from the other side of town and she will not miss an opportunity to exploit it. I really don't believe it's intentional. I truly think she just can't help herself.
So all day long, I am playing both offense and defense, trapped in a sales office in negotiations in which I don't plan to compromise, actively making plans that will take 3 times longer to accomplish when the haggling is factored in, eyeing the breakroom door and wondering when I will get bumped back there.
The hardest part - and this is where I broke into tears with friends last night - is that every day I realize that the very traits about her that make me crazy are the ones God's given me that allow me to accomplish anything. So rather than disciplining the persistence out of her (teaching her "not to be me" and demonstrating my unbelief that God has given us these "gifts" for a reason), my mission has to be to help her to learn to use her powers for good and not evil - and that is where it changes from a discipline issue to a lifelong training mission. There is no breakroom secluded enough to hide from that job. Thank God for grace, or I'd have been fired a long time ago.
Comments
always wanted to work at disney or epcot--when did you do that and what kind of role did you play??? so curious!