Ahem, You Were Saying?

There are moments in life where you get something just plain wrong. I’m sure you've experienced this. You were convinced of something and were not afraid to tell anyone about it. Then later, you find out you were wrong.

Today was another day when I found out, I was just plain wrong. I've taken to confessing out loud when something like this occurs.

Let me take you back to the beginning of this story. I was returning from a splendid vacation. It was the type of vacation that, when the wheels of the plane lifted off of Australia, tears came to my eyes because I was not ready to leave. By the time I reached the Philippines, I had been traveling for at least 24 hours through multiple airports and I still had another long layover and flight before I’d be done.

I walked up to immigration, handed over my documents, then dug in my bag for more documents, answered questions, explained what I was doing and waited… and waited. The longer I waited the more frustrated I became. He kept flipping through my passport where there are multiple visas showing that I’ve been working here. My thoughts were a bit like this: ‘Just stamp the passport’, ‘I’m here to help people for crying out loud’, ‘Why are you so confused’, ‘JUST STAMP THE PASSPORT’, ‘If you really don’t want me here, I’m happy to go back to Australia or New Zealand'.

Eventually my passport was stamped and returned. I went through and met up with the other staff member traveling with me. They had gone through immigration in minutes, without any hassle and even thanked for working to help the victims of Yolanda. This elicited quite the vent session from me. All of those thoughts that I listed and more came spilling out of me in a torrent of complaints.

A month later, it came time to renew visas. My base manager walked up to me this afternoon and handed me my passport. “Good news, your visa doesn't need to be renewed. You were given a stamp that doesn't have to be extended.”

(the expression was something like this, though with a bit more surprise and shame)

It was a slap in the face of encouragement. I looked at her and confessed: “Well, I have to apologize for fussing about that immigration officer.”

I couldn't believe it had taken so long for the guy to stamp my passport. I was frustrated and in quite a bad attitude, thinking that clearly the middle of the night was too late for this guy because he was so confused. All the while, I had been given something worth much more than the time I had to spend standing there waiting.

Today, I needed a bit of encouragement. I had no idea that I had already been supplied that encouragement about a month ago.