come-up-pance[kuhm-uhp-uhns] : deserved fate. Synonyms: due, due reward, just desserts, just punishment, recompense, requital, retribution
I mentioned, a couple of posts back, that I had been hired for a seasonal job in a call center. I have never worked in this kind of a position before. I am not afraid of hard work, I like working with people and I am good with deadlines, but I am not always super speedy. I usually work at home, on my own time schedule, so if I have a project that needs to be done, I put in whatever time necessary to accomplish the task. With this new job? Let me just say…I’m still in learning mode!
As I have gotten older, I have learned to be more patient, at least with the people around me – friends, family and strangers included. I am pretty good when I come face to face with delays, like lines at the grocery or department store. I never understood why some people get so cranky. I know that we are busy these days and no one wants to spend time in a slow line. But some have yet to embrace the term, long-suffering.
long-suf·fer·ing [lawng-suhf-er-ing, -suhf-ring, long-] adjective 1. enduring injury, trouble, or provocation long and patiently. noun 2. long and patient endurance of injury, trouble, or provocation: years of long-suffering and illness.
Now for the confessional. I have, at times, been known to get frustrated when on the phone getting technical assistance. Unfortunately, that’s not my only short-coming. I have the patience of a gnat when my drive-thru order is wrong…give me Diet Dr. Pepper instead of Diet Coke and that will send me right back onto the end of the line to rectify the mistake. I don’t get nasty, I just get it right.
So…I have come to the conclusion that my previous years of impatience has come around to bite me in the “you know where”. With this new employment, I am walking in someone else’s shoes. All of a sudden, I have a new respect for all those employees working in a fast-paced environment, that may be new in their job and, regardless of the occasional mistakes they might make, are doing their best to serve me as a customer.
So now I get to know how it feels to be on the other end of the phone line. There are so many sweet, patient, polite people. But there are just enough of those cranky ones to make me humble and remember that what goes around, comes around. I am being served an ample portion of humble pie.
humble pie – noun 1.humility forced upon someone, often under embarrassing conditions; humiliation. 2. Obsolete . a pie made of the viscera and other inferior parts of deer or the like.
Idiom 3. eat humble pie, to be forced to apologize humbly; suffer humiliation: He had to eat humble pie and publicly admit his error.
So thanks for the “just desserts”…I think I’m full now, thank you very much!
