You get home after a long hard day at work... you're flipping through your mail. Bills, bills, a couple catalogs, more bills and then your heart stops, you feel faint... in your hand is the catastrophic... JURY DUTY SUMMONS!
HOW DO I GET OUT OF THIS!! Immediately you start planning your excuse...
Sure, you can postpone it once or twice. You might even come up with a really good excuse - but the courts are cracking down these days, you're required to provide documented proof of that excuse... 9 times out of 10 the Judge won't hear it.
The gavel has pounded the bench with a thundering WHACK! You cannot avoid it. The hard cold reality is... YOU JUST HAVE TO DO IT!
First panic sets in: WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO? What if you're picked for a trial that last weeks? How can you miss work? There's absolutely NO ONE who can do what you do... No one can BE you.
Next comes irritation: There are so many logistics to work out! Getting a temp to fill in for you; typing all the details of what to do and how you do it... You think of every possible scenario of what could happen and write out what to do. You've got to talk your boss(s) off the ledge; explain it's our duty as citizens to serve when called - No... you're not abandoning them (really) and there will be temp... "It'll be OK." You've got to prep all the other assistants to help so the bases are covered. And if that's not enough, you think, "Do I stop in the office before and after just to be sure all is being handled?"
The big day finally arrives! You show up to the jury room with your bottled water, a packed lunch, plenty of reading materials, a folder with all pertinent work info in case the temp calls and your blackberry. Then you sit around - hour after hour nervously wondering if you'll get "called." As you sit, your mind churns with all the things you forgot to tell the temp and you hope your boss has not tortured him/her so much they've quit. You may even have to go through this pain a few days in a row.
If you actually make it into a courtroom - the routine starts all over... Anxiously wondering, again, if you'll get "chosen" thinking of all the reasons you could give to disqualify yourself...
The next thing you know it's over. You're done. "Are you sure? Am I really released... for good??" you say doubtfully. YAHOO!! WHOOPIE! You strut down the corridor belting out the Hallelujah Chorus!!
This was my existence the past several weeks when I got my summons for Grand Jury service - which in LA County would require me to be "on-call" for 30-days. My boss had just arrived in South Africa to begin production on our latest movie. Panic, turmoil, worry and loss of sleep have been my existence. But as I was leaving the courthouse, overjoyed that I'd escaped for another whole year... I realized all the emotions and stress of preparing for Jury Duty was very similar to the emotions and stress of life.
Because of how I'm wired, I can obsess about possible upcoming situations in my life ad nauseam! Like prepping for a temp - I will run through every possible scenario of "what if" I can think of, over and over. Then I'll take those scenarios and come up with 5 more for each one... I will stress, worry, fret, and lose sleep... I will beg and plead with God for answers, for direction.
The hard cold reality is... Life Happens! When the situation finally arrives - it's nothing! It's a breeze... everything worked out exactly the way I had hoped. What I thought would be the ideal results, are exactly what transpired. Or, even better - the situation I THOUGHT would come never did!
I put myself through...well... hell, basically... for nothing! When will I ever learn?!?!
Sure - you may actually get picked to serve on a jury... I did a couple years ago and the trial lasted 33 days!! It was inconvenient... but I adjusted. The temp was fine and did a decent job. My bosses were OK. Life went on. And in the end, I actually enjoyed it - found it really interesting to see how the system works. I was happy I got the opportunity. Imagine that. My feathers were ruffled... My "agenda" altered... but the world didn't end.
Sometimes the absolute worst WILL happen... and... you do survive - changed maybe - but still standing... and when you look back, you find it wasn't actaully that bad.
...oh, and... God is with you... strengthening, encouraging and guiding... every step of the way!
Friday, February 5, 2010
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