What a week. After I had bad news at work, I had to go to ‘Mike’s Miserable Emporium’ and buy a new set of sackcloth. Not being a very tidy sort of guy, I had some ashes left in the barbecue from the last braai we had. I spent a few busy hours rending my garments, and then I plucked out my beard with some rusty tweezers.

‘Mike’ also had a special on sad pan pipe cover versions, so I bought ‘Leonard Cohen’s Greatest Hits For Solo Pan’, and some morose wall hangings. They were tapestries of children weeping, and finally I got some brass rubbing replicas of medieval graves to line the passage. Dimming the lights, I shuffled haplessly from room to room, keening quietly to myself.

Brief outline: (No real names, as I really need that salary…)

The bookshop I manage hasn’t been doing too well for the last few months, and it appears that the mall is quieter, since a Huuuuge mall opened up fairly nearby. I was trying various things to reverse the trend, but nothing worked.

Monday, my boss came to me and said that I would be swapping with another staff member at a different shop, as she was ‘keen’. He did say that it wasn’t a demotion, but that it was to happen virtually immediately. So Tuesday I left the place where I have been working for five years, and Thursday I started at the new shop. I discovered that my challenging mandate was to ‘tidy the shelves, and just kind of help out in the shop’.

No more responsibilities. I was in shock. I came very close to picking up my bag and leaving, but having a family and bills, I had to paste on an ‘I’m here to serve’ face, and spent the day eating an economy-sized portion of crow. I’ve worked through that, and I believe that God put me there for a purpose, and that I should work as hard as I always do. I don’t believe in the what-goes-around philosophy, so I’m just going to have to keep my head down and trust that ‘all things work together for good for those that love the Lord, and are called together for His purpose’. (Romans 8 vs 28)

Sure I was angry, and depressed and I guess in shock. But ultimately I spend a lot of my day at my job, but it is not my sole defining role.

Got me thinking, if a nutso employee at a firearm factory went postal, would he attack everyone with a mail cart?

Kindly note: I own no CDs with the suffix ‘classics on the pan pipes’. Those meditation compilations with sounds of babbling brooks make me want to go to the loo. Give me some amps and drum solos, and I will relax better than the Dalai Lama on Prozac.