The past two weeks have been hard for a lot of people, myself included.
Morale seems low, work seems busy, and overall I've been depending on
God for my daily allotment of grace and good attitude, rather than the
naturally supplied good attitude I normally have.
But today.... something interesting happened.
Several weeks ago, I got an idea from listening to some friends speak.
I had this idea to purchase, install and configure a robodialer
(autodialer). The idea is that if the computer systems went offline and
we couldn't email everyone, we could use the phone system to make calls
to people informing them in the case of an emergency.
This little system has been my pet project for a few weeks, and I had
just finished getting it working last week.
Today, there was a thunderstorm. A tree fell and struck a metal power
pole, bending it beyond repair. Suddenly a large section of our
community was without power, thus they were without email or internet.
Suddenly the office is a buzz with what we're going to do about this,
how we're going to inform everyone etc. I piped up with 'we can use my
new autodialer.'
Following my documentation, I recorded a brief message meant to inform
those who were without power, that they'd be without power all night
long. But, because I had built the call list to include EVERYBODY, I
also said 'for those with power, you can contact those who are without
to lend aid.' Or something close to that.
I hit go, and the computer did the rest. With about 30 seconds of
effort from me, 45 minutes of automated dialing, suddenly the entire
centre was informed.
But that isn't where this story gets interesting. It is what happened
AFTER that.
I started getting emails 'this is SO COOL! NICE JOB!'
Then, I went outside to look at the situation (picture above), figuring
I should put eyes on the actual issue. The freshly returned manager of
the Electrical department saw me and said 'Chad thanks for getting the
word out.' I replied "no worries, my part was the easy part, you guys
have all the heavy lifting." to which he said "for us, contacting
everyone would have been a lot of work, so thank you."
It started to dawn on me that my little pet project was already starting
to help people.
And then, on my way home I realized that a house on my way home, full of children was
without power, I pulled up and offered to help. This family has
quintuplets and are friends. But as I offered, my wife pulled up behind
me with candles and lanterns.
We had not coordinated to help this family out, in fact I'd been at work
all day and hadn't spoken with her, but here we were together, lending them aid.
My wife told me 'yeah, I received your automated call, which made me
think 'well we have power, I wonder who we can help who doesn't?' She
thought of the same family I did, and brought over candles and lanterns.
I suddenly realized that my little 'off the cuff' remark may have inspired others to help out, so I checked around.
Sure enough, those with power were lending aid to those without.
I'm not claiming credit at ALL for the fact that people were offering
help, this community does that without prompting, it is their best quality.
My point is, that today I felt as if I had made a contribution to making
a bad situation less bad, by informing people who naturally wish to help
others.
It was my first big win in a while, and my heart is full of gratitude to
God for the timing of it. I feel as if my time in this job has been
validated, and God was saying 'hang in there, you are where I've put you.'
