Hot Water

I was making coffee at the office yesterday morning, and in order to save some time, I put my paper cup on the hot plate to let it fill before replacing it with the coffee pot. The coffee had just started to drip when Charley called to me from outside the room. "Is that a new employee?" he asked, pointing to an unfamiliar face. Charley works at a different location, so we spent a few moments catching up on recent hires before I went back to fetch my coffee.

Well, you can imagine what I found. In the brief time I had stepped away, I'd completely forgotten about my coffee and now it was pouring over the sides of my cup, flooding the hot plate, spilling over the coffee maker onto the counter and threatening its way to the floor.

"Oh no!" I exclaimed. "What do I do?" Unfortunately, this wasn't the first time I'd walked away from my time-saving, coffee-cup-filling trick. I knew from experience that picking up the cup meant my hands would be scalded with hot coffee. And even more so today, because the cup I'd used was an extra tall paper cup with no handles.

Charley heard my panic from outside the room and came running. "What's wrong?" he asked. "What happened?" Of course I didn't have to explain. We stood side by side in front of the "coffee fountain" hopping from side to side, trying to make a grab for the cup, backing away and trying again.

"Drop it in the sink!" (me) "I can't get a hold of it!" (Charley)
"Knock it over!" (me) "Then will have an even bigger mess."(Charley)

It was hopeless. Finally we just looked at each other and burst out laughing. We were clearly in hot water (that was for Jim) and didn't have a clue what to do.

"Oh shit!" Charley said. "No shit!" I giggled. We were cracking ourselves up, but meanwhile, the coffee continued to stream over the top of my cup. And the fact that we were just helplessly standing there watching it get worse, somehow made it all the funnier.

Finally, in a burst of inspiration, Charley dashed into the bathroom, grabbed a stack of paper towels and used them like hot pads to grab the cup. In the second it took the hot water to soak through the towels, he had already dropped the cup in the sink. He was my hero! We used the rest of the paper towels (at least a hundred) to clean up the mess, laughing the entire time.

"I can't believe I did that," I said, as I finally caught me breath. "Yeah, but I distracted you," Charley answered. And it was true. We really had been in it together. And it felt good. You know? It felt great!

The interesting thing about the coffee incident was that it was a distillation of a much bigger, much more serious problem, a problem I was at that very moment in the midst of dealing with.

The day before, I'd created a huge mess with The Boss. I'd stepped away to answer a question for another employee, but in answering the question, I set off a series of events that landed me in seriously deep hot water. Initially, I wasn't sure what to do or how to handle it, but I called out for help and my P3 buddies jumped in. Together we laughed and consoled, strategized and shared old war stories until finally I had enough inspiration to go work it out with The Boss. I had to walk into his office alone, but I knew they were waiting (in spirit) just outside the door, their hands full of paper towels to help protect me from the burn. I debriefed with them afterwards and it felt good. Yes - in spite of the stress I just been through, it felt great!

In Jack Hayhow's recent post about relationship and community, he talks about community as a feeling of fellowship with others, the kind that develops when you share common attitudes, interests and goals. And I will add, the kind you have when you trust one another. When you enjoy that kind of fellowship at work, showing up is more about a shared way of life, and less about the toil and the paycheck.

I'm grateful for the fellowship I share with Charley, my P3 Buddies, and so many of my co-workers. I'm lucky to have a job that doesn't usually feel like work. And I am pretty confident this is why.