Who's The Boss?

It has been awhile since I have been in the workforce and with the exception of one seasonal job 6 years ago, I have happily (for the most part) been employed at home. When the opportunity for a temporary job came my way, I figured it would be a nice way to get my feet wet in the working world again, without a long-term commitment or high level of stress.  In fact, I was going to get to work at a place where I enjoy spending time and like the people, my church.  But never having worked as a secretary for a church before, I didn't realize the precise magnitude of that role. See, I naively assumed that my boss would be the pastor, and he technically is, but there are roughly 150ish other people there that assume they are my bosses too. Apparently, I am also moonlighting as a complaint/gripe hotline too.  There have been times when I really thought people were joking with me the last few weeks about particular "grievances", until I realized they were dead serious. Case in point, the following happened to me on Sunday, and I am still not sure what to make of it.

I was walking into church, when I was abruptly stopped by a parishioner. He said, "There is a problem." I braced myself for having some glaring error in the bulletin to be pointed out to me, as he pulled me aside. Tentatively I said, "Okay...."drawing the word out slowly, trying to think what else I might have done wrong, for his tone was quite serious, and he wasn't holding a bulletin after all. "There were two folding chairs that were in your office last week.  And today, today, there was only one." I waited, because I wasn't sure what the problem was yet. He proceeded in a grave tone, "There HAVE to be two folding chairs in your office, because on Sundays that is where the offering money is counted.  There weren't two in there today." Now call me a dunce, but I still didn't understand the issue.  I did understand that now, I was being detained long enough that the church service was starting, and I began to feel slightly annoyed. "Mhmm." I smiled. Then the sneak attack, "What happened to the other chair?" he sounded accusing. Seriously?  Did he think I took the chair home with me?  "Um, I don't know?" My voice raised at the end like a question, because I suspected he was going to tell me what happened to the other chair. Instead, he waited for a better answer. "Someone probably moved it..." my voice trailed off. There are any number of people that have keys to my office, and I did not remember moving the chairs, but here is the real nutty thing...there are several folding chairs in the room across the hall from me. We are talking 10 feet, maybe. And really, there are A LOT of folding chairs in there. At this point, I started to feel peevish, because it really just seemed a wee bit ludicrous. The man assured me that they had resolved the problem, but could I please make sure that from now on, the folding chairs were undisturbed? I began walking away before he finished speaking, and my husband, not wanting to horn in on official church business had stood back, but now was on my tail toward the sanctuary. "What was all that about?" he asked. He had sensed the gravity of the situation by the way I was approached, so it had to be serious. I just shook my head, "You wouldn't believe it."  Truthfully, I didn't believe it. Finally, I leaned over and whispered the interchange to him during the praise songs, and he  started cracking up. His response made me laugh too, and relax a bit.  But what I loved best was when he said, "On your last day of work, you should totally fill your office with folding chairs!"

It is with this story, that I have a new found respect for those employed by churches across the land. Pastors, church secretaries; kudos to you, because you are dealing with a lot of interesting people on a daily basis.  I hope I never get to the point where I view a "missing" folding chair as an actual travesty.