Standing at the Microphone

‘Hi, I’m Court, and I’m a perfectionist.’ And in today’s de-perfecting activity we are going to sit and stare at a wall and do NOTHING. I’m pretty sure I would spontaneously combust. It has been nineteen, long, years that I have been doing what I do. Over the years I have been fortunate that the path to promotion is largely academic based which means we take tests to move up to the next level. That means I can study as hard as I want for six months straight to do as well as I possibly can every four or five years. In my current role I am in charge of about a hundred employees, and last year two of them died of COVID within a day of each other.

I’m not sure if I’ll ever write my thoughts on that horrid disease, but, I do have thoughts on memorial services. Then this year a third employee was killed in a crash. My organization, like many I assume, is on a D, E, I kick. That means: Diversity! Equity! And my favorite: Inclusion!! I’m not being sarcastic, I promise. Do you have any idea how hard it is to try and make things equal, diverse and so that every one feels included for an organization of around fifteen hundred people?

A few months before my boss told me about another work group that was having a memorial service for their employee who died. I can always tell when he is having his executive meeting because my phone will blow up with texts from him: what about this thing? Or this? Can we try this? How about this with a top hat and cane and ‘hello my baby, hellow my darling??’ 

He also has been trying to get me to stop being so over-extended, but, my employees who are just one level down and each manage a third of my work group were all unavailable. One had transferred to a new group and the other two were not going to be able to make the event. Luckily, I had already picked a replacement and God bless him did he have an initiation. 

The other memorial ceremony was not something I was able to attend as I was at a charity event the same night. I kept saying “this event will be simple.” And sure, I meant it. But then I found myself getting a pastor, getting a musician, and feverishly watching the weather as the event was supposed to be outside and it was the one week it decided to rain in Texas in summer.

One of the main elements involved coordinating with another work group at an entirely different location to ensure the timing of said event happened as soon as the main speaker, the head my organization, got done speaking. I had pre-arranged with my new employee to handle this task. Now, mind you, I had called this other work group at like two in the afternoon to arrange this and had been very, very clear about what I needed. They were not as clear. Le sigh. 

So there I was, standing at a microphone staring down at a crowd that seemed to grow as the empty minutes ticked by. I had previously sent something I had written about the employees to the pastor as he had never worked around them before nor knew them at all. In other words, I had no words because he had used them all. It felt like an eternity and at one point I glanced down and saw my new employee on the phone, with a frantic look on his face, and my boss on the phone with an annoyed look on his face. Later he would tell me that when he called up there, the other work group manager aloofly told him that the request I was making needed to come from an executive. He said he practically yelled “I am one!!” I interjected with, hey now, they didn’t say anything about that when we called to arrange it this afternoon! 

And herein lies the perfectionist’s main problem: despite your best effort to control the entire universe around you, well, all you can do is you baby. So I stood, at the microphone, feeling for all the world like I was naked and also covered in that green goo from Ghostbusters. And I waited. And waited. Finally it happened, the thing I had coordinated went through and then I was able to conclude the ceremony and cue the musician. 

I then did the perennial perfectionist woman thing: I went and apologized to everyone: to the head boss, to the immediate boss, to my family who had been some of the faces staring up at me oh-so-lovingly, and to the family of one of the deceased. But it didn’t stop there, I stuck on it, worrying over it, wondering how it all could have gone so wrong when I had coordinated it so thoroughly. 

But what should pull me out of my pity party but someone who actually has pity itself to wear as a cloak. A previous event that I had set up with this same widow had taught me some things about her, for at that time I had just come to this workgroup having assumed my new position only a month prior. Now I’ve been on a trip with her, visited with her multiple times, and truly gotten to know and her biggest ask every time was for stories. Tell me stories about my husband. This was a man I had known from day one, and admired, but I am always better when I can write out my thoughts first. 

For probably an hour I stood by her as different people talked about her husband, and the graciousness of his person shone through. The sweet dear woman had brought gifts and I would watch as she would listen and then when the speaker was done telling a story about him, she would reach into the box and pull out a gift. I had practiced in my head my gentle refusal, trying to use the excuse that I wanted the gifts for my employees, but she waved her hand ‘nonsense! I’ll order more!’ 

Driving home, I tried to tell myself that the event had been for the family and friends of the employee. That the snafu that happened wasn’t the point, at all. I talked into the air, grateful for our prevalent use of phones making that not weird at all. Then when I made it home, having sent my family on ahead of me while I finished up with the widow and her family, my dear husband just casually said the thing I needed to hear: ‘honey, it went perfect. Everyone could tell that the mistake was the other group’s problem, and could see how much you had done to make the night a success.’

So now I’ll take my seat in my folding chair, and I’ll nervously finger my cup of bad coffee while you share your own perfectionist-recovery stories. Thank you