One-Use Carte Blanch
I was put in a situation when I had to use the white card. It was my ace in the event that anything happened. The semester was about to begin. My vacation was practically over, and I had to start thinking about getting things ready for the beginning of Spring 2021. Checking work emails, I was reminded of another email from last month. I was sure I had responded to it, but when I checked, I started to get that cold feeling when something important had been overlooked, and the guilty party was me.
I wrote the store representative I had had to respond to, mentioning to him that I thought I had given him my response, but I couldn’t find it in my emails anywhere. When I got his answer, my fears were confirmed. And because of my negligence, it was going to negatively impact the upcoming semester. I sat there, feeling like the monumental jackass that I was.
I thought about it for several minutes. I felt like I had to use that card now available to most of us. It was a get-out-of-jail-free card. I was going to tell him that I failed to respond to him because our household had been stricken by Covid 19. After carefully writing a well-balanced message, I sent my email to him and thought about what I had just done.
I don’t think it’s anybody’s business that we had to go through out trying times, but this was my job, and I had to give the store a sensible reason while I was pleading with them to work with me, even at so late a time. While the fact remained that I was overwhelmed last month with the state of our household, I didn’t want to cheapen the experience by providing it as an excuse for something I had failed to do. But what better excuse in these trying times?
When he wrote me back, the representative offered his sympathy, and he said he was going to try his utmost to get something done for me. He had just had two elderly family members go through Covid, and it was a very scary episode indeed. He did understand my situation, and then he explained why they could not fulfill the orders at the drop of a hat, giving me a brief explanation of the process of moving stock. They were going to do their best to get mine fulfilled.
I should have expected it, but I guess I didn’t see it coming. It started feeling like moves on a board. Though I love games, I always overlooked the likelihood that the person on the other side of the board possessed the same key piece I had just used. I was not too surprised when he pulled out the same card, making my monumental trials just max normal.
The only response at this juncture was to gush with gratitude, which I did, after offering my sympathy. But looking back on the whole misadventure of not having everything fall apart when we were overwhelmed with our circumstances, I don’t know how it could have played out any other way. I know it was my fault I didn’t respond to that one email, but I was able to do so many other duties without mishap even under the circumstances. It was like one of those bad video games from the 1980s when the game just kept throwing stuff at you before it took your third life and then “Game Over.” I did pretty well if only one thing slipped past me.
I got more emails after that. And it turned out they were going to be able to help me. Again, I gushed and told the representative and the other person involved with my emergency that they were awesome. I actually wrote a lengthy email about my gratitude, and I was sincere because they really pulled my fat out of the fire. But I got no response to this last message. I now chalk it up to their being so busy, with the semester starting and all, but I couldn’t help my initial reaction, when I sat there thinking that the only type of person who uses that card is a tremendous jackass.