Caught in the middle

As I'm sure you know, I work as a receptionist at a solicitors' firm in York city centre.  In many ways it's not a bad job, even if I do moan a lot, but there are many things I'd rather be doing.  However, this isn't a(nother) rant about frustrated ambitions and dead ends, but an attempt to relate certain features of the job to a wider life perspective (sounds grand doesn't it!)

The receptionist is always caught in the middle.  I got quite annoyed about this this week.  On the one hand, as someone with a care for how clients are treated, you feel slightly embarrassed when solicitors treat them in a way that isn't what you would consider good customer service- when a client's left waiting twenty minutes for an appointment, or two weeks before having a phone call returned (I hasten to point out that this isn't the kind of treatment our clients usually get!).  On the other, clients can sometimes treat you as if you are a mere piece of dirt beneath their feet, not on the same level as professionals like them and the solicitors.  Or they can get abusive, or be intimidating.  Or they can start trying to chat you up, which is just disturbing.

If something goes wrong, you're the first person the client complains to, perhaps for a good reason, but people can get incredibly annoyed that their solicitor is on his lunch break- as if having lunch breaks is entirely unreasonable and they can't wait half an hour!  Equally, if someone gives you the wrong number you will be the person that takes the blame when the solicitor tries to call them and can't get through, or be the person the solicitor gets grumpy with when they get a call from someone they'd rather not speak to.  Or, occasionally, get blamed for something that's not your fault.

But being caught in the middle is what we are are whole lives, in a way.  We are often caught between what we want to do (stay in bed all morning, watch TV, read,) and what we know we should do- go to work, do the washing up, go to bed early.  Christians are caught between their own plan for how they want to live and living God's way.  It can be difficult to see the right thing to do.  Like at work, the easiest thing in the short term may not be the best thing to do in the long run.  Life can seem something of a balancing act- balancing work with play, sadness with joys, the needs of ourselves, family, friends, colleagues, church and everything else.

The difference is that if we are trying to follow Jesus then we have to take sides- we have to accept that we will be ruled by God's will not our own, or rather that we will seek to make God's will our will.  Of course it's not as simple as that.  Jesus taught his followers to be in the world but not part of it- we're not removed from life in all its business and cares.  We still face a giant balancing act.  What's changed is our priority- God instead of me (or family, or money or anything else).


So for me at work that means treating everyone- client or solicitor, however grumpy or annoying- as I would want to be treated, if it was me.  "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus" Paul writes to the church at Colossae.  We should treat everyone, all the time, as we would if God, the ultimate boss, was watching (which he is, of course).  Of course I don't manage that all the time!  I sometimes do things my way instead of God's.  I make mistakes, don't leave enough time for myself or for others, get stressed about silly small things that seem big to me.  But I try to get the balance right.  One day I will.