I've always said having a job outside of my role as pastor is a good way to stay honest in ministry. Today I discovered that it also keeps me humble. I check tickets at the ski resort. Today, as I was checking tickets, I came across a kid with her mom who had a 2-day ticket. She had used her first day yesterday, so I marked it "done" as per my extensive training in the ticket arts. I was shocked to have this woman (the girl's mom) start yelling at me. Apparently, she was under the impression that her daughter had a 3-day pass and I had just ruined their entire vacation--possibly the whole year. I tried to explain about the 2-day thing, but to no avail--the tongue-lashing was merciless, even after it was obvious which of us was in the wrong.
An exprience like this puts things in perspective. The next time I have someone thank me for a great sermon or insightful council I'll remember the great resort rant of '06 and put my pride in check.
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A couple years back, me and my roommate Tony were at the mall. I can't remember exactly how it went down, but we ran into a lady who just started going off on us for no real reason other than we were somehow in her way. I believe we made the "mistake" of trying to pay for something while she was busy giving the business to the manager of Suncoast over who-knows-what.
Now, Tony's about the most mild-mannered individual you'll ever meet. But he has one of those incredibly long fuses that's attached to an incredibly large powder keg.
About the time he was about to explode on this incredibly rude woman, I said, "Don't worry about it, Pastor Tony. Let's just go." And we walked off.
The expression on the woman's face was absolutely priceless. She turned white, and you could tell she was thinking, "I just insulted a minister, and now I'm going to Hell." I know it wasn't the most honest thing to do, but I'd like to think that she learned an important lesson about life.
Imagine a short, 60-something woman with fake-looking reddish-brown permed hair, coke bottle glasses, and a head that seemed to be affixed directly to her shoulders pinning you to the wall and jabbing her finger over and over into your chest while yelling, "If I have to touch my keyboard it will cause an ABEND!!!"
I had this happen to me with one of the people I was supporting when I was working in IT at a flash storage company. I would have been more upset about it, but when it gets to a certain point it's so ridiculous that the hardest thing about it is keeping from laughing, and believe me, you don't want to start lauging. It didn't matter that she didn't even understand what the words she was saying meant (I had to go Google old IBM jargon myself to find out), when it gets that out of hand sometimes it's best to just be a spectator and enjoy the show. Just don't smile or you've tacked on at least 15 more minutes.
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