A Strange Prayer Answered

Now, where was I? Let's see... I believe I established in my last post that my boss, Bo, and his boss, Sheila, were... well, you read the story, right? If you didn't, you should go ahead and do that now.

Now, on with the story!

As is often the case in the business world, the folks in the non-management layer (i.e. the folks at the bottom) don't always get the full story of why decisions are made and whatnot. Such was the case here: to me, things continued plodding along as usual, until one day I heard a rumor that the software developers (which consisted of me and couple of other people) would be leaving Bo's team. The rumor was finally confirmed: they would be hiring someone from outside to be my new boss. I was leaving Bo!

Handel's Hallelujah Chorus rang in my head. I felt as though I had just popped my head out of the end of a prison escape tunnel!

Bo naturally felt that he had been wronged by having half of his team stripped away. All of the managers had a say in hiring the new manager (my future boss), and (I believe) Bo took advantage of the situation by recommending a (seemingly) timid little Indian girl from up-state New York who would be (he thought) easily intimidated. And let me tell you, Bo was good at intimidation. As soon as she was hired, he tried power move after power move, but she was a wild cat. Figuratively speaking, she clawed his eyes out in every meeting they attended, and it was just a ton of fun to watch. And to hear about - word spread rapidly that my boss was not to be trifled with. Naturally, I went out of my way to make my new boss feel welcome, and she would periodically stop by at the end of the day and tell amazing stories of closed-door death matches, power plays... basically lots of reasons to make me never want to become a manager. To this day, I wonder how middle managers anywhere can enjoy their jobs - everyone seems to hate everyone else, and there's always a scheme going on to steal resources, budget money, power, or whatmore from each other!

As the days went by things began to change behind the scenes, until one day I heard (from my boss) the startling news that Bo had been going to Human Resources complaining about Sheila's leadership skills, saying that she was giving him too much work to do, and so forth.

Say whut now? Bo was complaining about Sheila?

It was on that day that I realized, as I was driving home, just how much my prayer had been answered. You generally don't go to Human Resources until you've exhausted every other avenue. Talking one on one with Sheila in the car on the way to one of those conferences must not have been working anymore! But my story's not done yet...

Bo had been working on a major million-dollar plus project, and it wasn't going too well. In fact, it was going about as bad as any project could. The software just basically didn't work: everything they did seemed to fall apart as soon as it was put together, and it was making a lot of people look bad. Especially Sheila. And Sheila's boss. So the day came when Sheila decided to give my new boss Bo's project. Which meant major humiliation for Bo. Especially since my boss had already been given part of his team (me and friends) when she joined the firm. And to add salt to his wound, she completed the project on time, with no major hiccups, in about 6 months (it had been his project for over a year).

And then, the coup de grâce; Sheila took Bo's entire team and gave it to my boss. Every last person on his team was transferred to the team I was on. Leaving him with nada. So Sheila moved a few squares around on the ol' org chart and created a new support team just for Bo, which today is doing well, but it was pretty obvious that the once happy-go-lucky relationship between Bo and Sheila was no more.

A few months later Sheila tearfully announced that she would be leaving the firm. Moving on with her life and all that. Bo and I still cross paths every few weeks - the last time I saw him we actually traded a few jokes. He's actually a pretty nice guy. As long as I'm not working for him.

Just as a matter of clarification (in case you forgot or sumthin'), I never prayed that God would harm Bo or Sheila or otherwise bring bad fortune their way. And I don't believe that's what happened. To this day, Bo's new team is doing well, and Sheila has since started a nice little restaurant in south Atlanta. What I prayed for was that the rug would be yanked out from under their little relationship that was... just... messing up everything and causing problems and stuff like that.

Prayer changes things. God answers prayer. And just to finish this little post in the right way, here's two of my most favorite quotes, for your enjoyment.

And in that day ye shall ask me nothing. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.
John 16:23-24

And He's only asked us one thing: to believe that what He said is the Truth, and He'll bring it to pass. Oh, how beautiful. You expected a spontaneous thing to happen; sometimes it just takes a little bit of faith. It won't make a miracle, but if you'll hold on to it, it'll bring you out; just stay right with it. Like He said, "The seed of a mustard, the smallest among all seeds..." But did you ever notice, mustard won't mix with nothing. You can't cross mustard up with anything; it won't cross. And if you got faith, just a little bit of faith that won't cross up with any unbelief or any churchanity or dogmas, just stay right with God, just stay right with it, it'll bring you right on through the fog, take you right out. Yeah. Just stay with that faith.
The Patmos Vision