Today's fortune: Endurance and persistence will be rewarded.
Endurance and persistence? Check.
Reward? Yes and no.
This has been a week of endurance, for Jamie and I both. Jamie, who is still suffering from a bad back, had to sit in an uncomfortable classroom chair for the last two days for a college seminar. Talk about endurance. And I worked 45 hours over the past five days. Due to a meteorological event, widget inventory is up at Acme Co., and all the widget makers are working overtime to keep up.
For our endurance efforts, the rewards will be coming. Jamie is fulfilling college credit by attending the seminars, getting her one step closer to a degree, and because of the overtime my next few paychecks should be pleasantly plump.
In the persistence category, I achieved interesting results today.
There's a woman who works at my office. She is reasonably new to the building, and I've seen her sitting by herself a few times. Doesn't seem like she has many friends there yet. I'm a friendly guy, so I've tried to at least smile at her to let her know people at Acme Co. are nice. (No, Jamie, I haven't been trying to flirt, I'm just trying to be decent.)
Up until today my efforts have been completely rebuffed. My smiles have been greeted by vacant stares. At first I thought she was just shy, but eventually I started to believe that maybe she was kind of a jerk.
Today, specifically because of this fortune, I was persistent, and I pushed it to the limit. We were walking towards each other down an otherwise-empty hallway. When we were several feet away, I waved and said, "Hey, how's it going?" I also smiled and maintained eye contact.
I received absolutely no response.
So, turns out she's kind of a jerk.
Although I didn't get the payoff of meeting a new person or even engaging in a brief conversation, at least now I know not to bother with her anymore. That's a payoff of sorts, I guess.
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