Kittens, Dodgeball, and Waiting

Short story about being an adult inspired by a dream I had

Kittens, Dodgeball, and Waiting

I sit on the floor with the sole purpose of monitoring five kittens. The first kitten sits peacefully and content, practically sleeping. The second kitten acts similarly but its eyes are slightly watery and occasionally it suffers a sneezing fit.  The third kitten is acting just as kittens should. It’s playing and jumping all around and being simply adorable. That’s great as far as kittens go, but not so much for keeping them under control. The fourth kitten is like the third expect this one goes by the opposite end of the behavior spectrum. It is attempting to bite and scratch my face, distracting me from the others and causing me general grief. In this distraction, I have completely misplaced the fifth kitten.

While I attempt to control the five little beasts, it seems that I have also become involved in a game of dodgeball. There are balls flying in every direction all around me. Most of the balls do not even come close but few come within a few feet of me. Then there is one that hits me hard in the head, ruining any concentration I had on the rest of my surrounding environment and distracting me even further from my kitten burden.

I wake up. I realize it is all a metaphor for my entire state of being during the course of the workday.

The kittens represent my coworkers and I am their supervisor. The first kitten is the one worker who I can trust to do their job with minimal supervision. The second is performing admirably but I can see the cues that could lead to a problem, mentally or emotionally, resulting in their own departure and threatening the composure of the rest of the team. The third kitten/coworker has the appropriate attitude for the workplace, peppy and energetic, but needs monitoring to stay focused. Similar can be said about the fourth expect it does not have the constructive approach and therefore does the job but does it adversely so that the other thriving members begin to feel negatively too. Because of these distractions, the fifth and final member is gone with very little hopes of returning or making any helpful influence on the work load. Yet that fifth individual was still my responsibility, and I have lost them. Leaving me with a less than hopeful outlook, both for myself and my team.

The dodgeball game is the battle of balancing coworker interactions with customer connections. The customers are the players in the game and the balls represent the process of employee and customer exchanges. The balls that fly far away are customers whose names, faces, and stories I will most likely forget by days end. The ones that come a little closer I could remember if the memory needed to be recalled. Finally, the one ball that hits me in the head, is that one a*****e who for whatever reason has ruined my composure. The emotional and mental anguish of that confrontation has left me unfocused and disgruntled, making playing the rest of the game and supervision of the kittens even more difficult.

After interpreting this dream, I begin to ponder the ways I would go back and do things differently.

First, I would let go of those kittens. That’s natures way! Figure it out kittens! Survival of the fittest. I don’t even like kittens…

Second, I would get involved in that dodgeball game. I am competitive, I have a good throwing arm and decent aim. I would take those dodgeballs and show all those people what I am capable of!

But then reality creeps back in. I cannot do those either of things I would really like too. That would be irresponsible. I cannot let those kittens roam free. They need guidance even though some are reluctant to have it and others don’t really need it. I also cannot throw dodgeballs back at those who threw them first. As asinine as a customer may be, as rude, horrible, and stupid as I may believe them to be, I cannot express that to them.

So I will have to sit back down. I will round up my kittens who are sweet, helpful, stubborn, and frustrating. I will let those dodgeballs keep flying and I brace myself for the worst of it. I will wait for the day those kittens grow up or run away and I am laden with new kittens of unknown temperament and origin. And I will wait for that one dodgeball that will finally be the last one.