It Was Such a Little Thing!
As some of you know, I've gone back into the work force, serving a Christian organization as their part-time, "stand in the gap" person, doing special projects for which others don't have time.
Hard as it will be for some of you who know my lack of techie skills to believe, I now am responsible for a fairly complex database and also help maintain a website. Amazing, eh?
That brings us to last Friday. I was to send out an announcement, a prayer request, to a fairly good-sized group of people via e-mail. I'd been trained on this. I had taken copious notes of the multitudinous steps one takes from beginning to end to get a message to fly through cyberspace to all those folks who have been selected to receive it. I had done it with supervision, and I had done it without supervision. I knew how to do this and was not apprehensive.
Two hours later, in a process that should have taken 15 minutes, I was stymied. I had gone through each step of the process time and again. I had closed programs down and hit "Restart" twice, starting over at the very beginning.
Finally, I hit "Shut Down", rebooted, again going through the entire process, this time with a co-worker beside me, following each step in my notes to be sure nothing was amiss.
Every single time, the system would come back with "Operation Failed!" Do you know how unhelpful that is? I could see that it failed, but nothing told me WHY!
More than once, I had scanned the list of e-mail recipients, at the advise of our tech support person, to see if there was an incomplete e-mail address.
Eventually, I carefully went over every one of the 1,119 e-mail addresses to be sure there was an "@" and a ".com" or ".net" or ".edu" or ".something that looked logical". Each looked acceptable.
Finally, not knowing what else to try, we decided to break up the list and send the message out in smaller groups.
Group 1 - 400 was selected, the process followed, and the operation succeeded. YES!
Group 401 - 800 was selected. Again we got the message, "Operation Failed!"
Group 801-1119 was selected. The operation succeeded!
We had narrowed down the problem. We broke the list down further until we got to one set where again the all-too-familiar "Operation Failed!" message popped up.
With my boss's eyes and mine scanning that smaller group, my boss spotted something, a very small something. Could that be it? Could that be the thing that made this 15 minute project take well over 2 hours to complete? It was such a little thing!
About a week ago, I entered the information for one of our new Hispanic ministers whose name is José into the database. Without thinking, I had typed that accent mark into his e-mail address, and therein lay my problem. E-mail addresses apparently cannot include accent marks. It was such a little thing; it was hard to believe it had caused so much wasted time and frustration.
It made me think about other "little things", about how big an impact they can make. Being cut off on the freeway, receiving a dirty look or negative gesture, getting a curt or hurtful response -- little things that can put a dark cloud over your whole day and dampen your spirits.
And then there are those other little things -- a smile, an encouraging word, an unexpected note of thanks -- little things that brighten your day and bring joy to your heart. These are the little things we can do that make such a difference in an often hurtful, negative world.
It was such a little thing, but isn't it, after all, the little things that really count?
Hard as it will be for some of you who know my lack of techie skills to believe, I now am responsible for a fairly complex database and also help maintain a website. Amazing, eh?
That brings us to last Friday. I was to send out an announcement, a prayer request, to a fairly good-sized group of people via e-mail. I'd been trained on this. I had taken copious notes of the multitudinous steps one takes from beginning to end to get a message to fly through cyberspace to all those folks who have been selected to receive it. I had done it with supervision, and I had done it without supervision. I knew how to do this and was not apprehensive.
Two hours later, in a process that should have taken 15 minutes, I was stymied. I had gone through each step of the process time and again. I had closed programs down and hit "Restart" twice, starting over at the very beginning.
Finally, I hit "Shut Down", rebooted, again going through the entire process, this time with a co-worker beside me, following each step in my notes to be sure nothing was amiss.
Every single time, the system would come back with "Operation Failed!" Do you know how unhelpful that is? I could see that it failed, but nothing told me WHY!
More than once, I had scanned the list of e-mail recipients, at the advise of our tech support person, to see if there was an incomplete e-mail address.
Eventually, I carefully went over every one of the 1,119 e-mail addresses to be sure there was an "@" and a ".com" or ".net" or ".edu" or ".something that looked logical". Each looked acceptable.
Finally, not knowing what else to try, we decided to break up the list and send the message out in smaller groups.
Group 1 - 400 was selected, the process followed, and the operation succeeded. YES!
Group 401 - 800 was selected. Again we got the message, "Operation Failed!"
Group 801-1119 was selected. The operation succeeded!
We had narrowed down the problem. We broke the list down further until we got to one set where again the all-too-familiar "Operation Failed!" message popped up.
With my boss's eyes and mine scanning that smaller group, my boss spotted something, a very small something. Could that be it? Could that be the thing that made this 15 minute project take well over 2 hours to complete? It was such a little thing!
About a week ago, I entered the information for one of our new Hispanic ministers whose name is José into the database. Without thinking, I had typed that accent mark into his e-mail address, and therein lay my problem. E-mail addresses apparently cannot include accent marks. It was such a little thing; it was hard to believe it had caused so much wasted time and frustration.
It made me think about other "little things", about how big an impact they can make. Being cut off on the freeway, receiving a dirty look or negative gesture, getting a curt or hurtful response -- little things that can put a dark cloud over your whole day and dampen your spirits.
And then there are those other little things -- a smile, an encouraging word, an unexpected note of thanks -- little things that brighten your day and bring joy to your heart. These are the little things we can do that make such a difference in an often hurtful, negative world.
It was such a little thing, but isn't it, after all, the little things that really count?
posted by Patty @ 7:21 PM
2 Comments:
At 8:19 AM,
GRAMMY said…
GOOD SERMON, PATTY. ACTUALLY, I THINK THE LESSON IN THIS IS THAT WE SHOULD GO BACK TO SMITH-CORONAS!!! BY THE WAY, I FORGOT YOU WERE WORKING AGAIN. WHERE?
MUCH LOVE,
JUANITA
At 8:41 PM,
Patty said…
I'm working at Transformation Ministries. I call myself their "stand-in-the-gap" person, doing some special projects on a part-time, flex schedule basis. However, right now I"m working full-time for a co-worker who is on maternity leave. It's been a major growing, stretching experience to learn all the tech stuff for my tasks and to cover her work while she's gone, but I trust it's good for me and my aging brain.
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