An anxious-generating surprise

Dear Staff Members:

I am needing to call an emergency staff meeting for this Monday, March 10, beginning @ 9am around the conference table in the church office. Something has come UP that could greatly affect our upcoming 4 events (Women’s Event, Egg Hunt, Good Friday Worship, and Easter). It is important that I am able to share these details with you all at the same time.

The administrative staff from the school/daycare have not been invited to this meeting nor has any church staff member who does not work in the office as it only directly affects the church staff who work in the office on a day to day basis. As a result, this meeting is mandatory for those receiving this e-mail. If you do not normally work on Monday mornings, you do not need to come in for this meeting unless you want to. The only exception to this is Megan…if you could be there it would be greatly helpful for both receptionists to be at this meeting. I have already asked Rick Bernhardt to have the school cover the phones and doors during this time so that both Charlene and Megan can attend the meeting.

I know all of you are busy right now but I need you to set this time aside. I’m not sure how long this meeting will take so please keep the better part of that morning clear just in case. We will keep the office window closed that morning until after our meeting is done. Please do not ask me what the meeting is about in advance as that would put me in an awkward position. I honestly can’t make any announcement before Monday morning as I will not know all of the circumstances until just prior to our 9am meeting.

Thank you!
Scott


That's the message we all received last Wednesday morning. The varied reactions/responses of staff members reveals that for those who've been on staff at Grace for a decade or more, there are still tender spots from past wounds. Emergency meetings usually don't involve good news or happy surprises. I know I lost a lot of sleep over the past week as I fought to keep my mind from speculating about what could be wrong. I attempted not to conduct a full FBI analysis-parsing of each verb, font usage, let alone reading between the lines - having to write similar notices at various times, I know I don't appreciate it when a message gets dissected - but it turns out there were clues embedded in the message.

As the caravan headed south on Rt 501 this morning, the speculation mounted. "I think we're going to the airport where there will be a helicopter that will be used to drop the Easter Eggs from the sky for Saturday's Egg Hunt." I could corroborate that there were two helicopters at the airport this morning that I hadn't seen before.

I learned quickly that bosses prefer as few surprises as possible and that I don't like them either. Due to confidentiality matters, surprises are inevitable and you learn to deal with them. Turns out all of my internal turmoil was completely unnecessary. The "UP" in the original message as indeed intended as a clue. 'Course, I figured it had to be a good news emergency meeting with the tease that went out in Pastor Scott's email update on Monday morning. I guess, though it was just a 10-15 minute flight around Lititz, I'll be suffering jet lag this week from all the sleep I lost in anxious anticipation. The loss of sleep was worth the exhilaration of being in the air on a work day with my co-workers.

How cool a boss do we have that he arranged for each of us to fly over Lititz for the purpose of seeing a birds-eye view of the people we are trying to reach?

He'd actually attempted to give us a celebratory day off after Easter as well; but he hadn't realized that we get a Easter holiday anyway, rendering the day off idea moot. I hated sharing that news with him because I knew he was attempting to show appreciation to all of us.

No doubt about it, Grace is a fascinating place to work and God has assembled a unique team that takes each of our ministries and responsibilities seriously, but at the same time, we know how to have fun. I don't know many places that are given a morning off to go for an airplane ride on a Monday morning.