A Trashy Situation
I was sitting at my desk today, eating lunch, and feeling guilty for not posting anything to my blog in a while, when a totally random, funny memory came to mind. Well, it’s funny now, but it wasn’t then. I figured I’d spin it into a blog posting with a point, so here goes.
I’m a veteran of the United States Air Force. If you weren’t aware of that fact, take a minute to click on that link at the top of the page that says “Who I Am,” give it a quick read, then come back. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Trust me, you’re going to want to come back.
My first duty station was Misawa Air Base in Japan. I knew this assignment was going to be out of the ordinary because the very first day I arrived, there was an earthquake and an F-16 crash. True story. My first job at said duty station involved delivering official mail. Not the federal mail that you put a stamp on and drop in the blue US Postal Service mailboxes, but the “official” Air Force mail that is sent between offices or even between bases. Every morning, it was my job to drive (or ride in) a “bread truck” (imagine a UPS or FedEx delivery truck) to the post office, pick up the official mail, sort it in the handmade bins in the back of the truck, and then deliver it across the base. This was typically done with a team of two people, but sometimes three people were required if there was an excessive amount of mail to be delivered, which usually happened on Monday mornings.
On this particularly memorable Monday morning, we had three people loaded in the bread truck, and I backed up to the post office loading dock to pick up our mail. I went inside, drug a few bags to the back of the truck and tossed them inside, and the other two airmen immediately opened the bags and quickly began sorting the mail into the appropriate wooden bins for delivery. Then, I grabbed the last few items; a couple of trays of letter-class mail (example shown below).
I stacked them up outside of the truck, on the loading dock, then went back inside to ensure we had everything before leaving. When I got back outside, the trays of were gone. I looked inside the truck, didn’t see the trays, so I asked my co-workers: “Did either one of you grab the letter tray mail already?” Both shook their heads no. I stepped back onto the dock and looked around, and happened to catch a garbage truck leaving the parking lot. It took mere seconds for me to piece together what happened. The trash “mama-san” took my letter tray mail! And here’s how I came to that conclusion.
Some of the letter trays are made out of cardboard, which wears out quickly. The plastic ones wear out too (shown in the picture above), but not as fast. The post office employees would place the worn out trays on the loading dock next to the trash dumpsters. Which was next to where we picked up mail every day. Why not place them inside the dumpsters, or in a bag, I don’t know. And why this mama-san would take letter trays full of actual letters and mail and throw them in the back of a trash truck is beyond me, but she did.
I slammed the back doors on the truck shut, jumped in the driver’s seat, and told my fellow airmen to hold on as I explained what I had thought had just happened. I headed in the general direction of the trash truck, only to run into two different trash trucks. One in a Burger King parking lot, and one heading in the opposite direction. Seriously. I can’t make this stuff up. What are the freaking chances of two trash trucks being in the same area? Not knowing which one to flag down, and knowing even if we did, there would probably be a significant language barrier, let alone the fact that we only had a certain amount of time to get the mail delivered before we had to get back and get the outbound mail prepared to be mailed out, we gave up and headed up to “security hill” to our first stop and contemplated what our next move should be. Yes I know that’s a run on sentence, just go with it, ok?
At our first stop, I decided to call my supervisor and deliver the bad news so I wouldn’t have to wait until we’d completed our entire route to find out whether or not I was going to lose what few stripes I had on my arm. What transpired from the time of that phone call to the time we returned to the shop was nothing short of incredible. My supervisor informed the rest of our team of the situation, and several people that outranked me by many stripes volunteered to go to the trash dump and try to track down the missing mail. I don’t know if they did it because I’m such an awesome person, or because they genuinely liked and respected our supervisor. Now, I was pretty well liked by my co-workers, but I’m guessing it was a whole lot of the latter and none of the former. I can remember the look on my supervisor’s face when she had to meet with her boss’ boss, a lieutenant colonel who LOVED singing the song “My Name Is Prince“ loudly and off-key, to explain and answer for my colossal screw up. She knew I was frightened and anxious, and she looked at me with a half-hearted smile on her face. I don’t remember her exact words, but they were something along the lines of “don’t worry, we’ll deal with it, whatever “it” ends up being. It’s going to be ok.” I couldn’t have asked for a better “first” supervisor. I’d love to mention her name here, but I don’t want to embarrass her, nor do I want to invade her privacy. But I will say we’re Facebook friends, and her initials are NC. 😉 She taught me so much, with a humongous amount of patience and compassion, and she was the best supervisor I ever could’ve asked for. She also liked singing “Angie,” by The Rolling Stones. Also off-key, but how much cooler can you get than a high-ranking military supervisor who sings The Stones?
That situation taught me some important life lessons.
- Never underestimate people. You’d be surprised who’ll come to your aid in your time of need (and who won’t).
- Always tell the truth, even if it could result in negative consequences. If nothing else, most people will respect you for being honest. And if they don’t, at least you know what you’re dealing with.
- If you screw up, own it, apologize for it, and then do what you can to fix the situation. Again, most people will respect you for it. I think people find this behavior refreshing, because not many people will admit when they’re wrong or when they’ve messed something up. Instead, they play the blame game or make excuses, which solves nothing.
- At the end of the day, you need to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and be proud of who you see staring back at you, flaws (screw ups!) and all.
- I’ve used this situation to teach my children that sometimes doing the right thing can be scary, but you’ll be a better person for it. You get what you give, and you reap what you sow.
So how did this situation end? Well, my supervisor and her boss came back missing a butt cheek apiece, my higher ranking co-workers were able to track down the kidnapped mail and recover most of it. Amazingly, they were smiling and laughing, even after having ruined some expensive dress blues digging through stinking trash.
And my punishment? Honestly, I don’t remember the “formal” punishment, but I’m sure it involved a good talking to, and a discussion with the entire team about being more careful in the future to keep the situation from happening again. But my real punishment was having to see an announcement on the television for about two weeks, telling people to double-check any payments they may have sent through official mail to make sure they posted, due to an unfortunate incident that caused the loss of some pieces of mail. And , if they were expecting something and didn’t receive it within the week, to contact the sender to have them resend it. Even though only a handful of people on base knew the full story of what happened, I knew what happened, and I was incredibly embarrassed every time I had to see that announcement. And I was embarrassed the next time I had to see my lieutenant commander, who I really liked, and who I think took a liking to me too. I was able to win her over again by helping to plan a Halloween party that she really enjoyed, but that’s fodder for another blog. I was also able to redeem myself by winning Airman of the Year, out of all the airman in my career field on the entire base, which was an incredible honor for me.
However scary and embarrassing the situation was, I’m forever grateful for the experience because it made me a better person.
Until next time,
Angela