Expectations
JFX has truly become a "big tent." Every Shabbat morning we now gather in a 2100-square foot outdoor tent as we sing, study and pray together in a socially-distanced way. We needed tables and chairs, which we ordered online.
The shipping company called me one afternoon to let me know when the driver would be arriving. So nice of them to inform me, I thought. Figuring that I'd need some help setting up the furniture after it would arrive, I asked my 13-year-old son to come along and help. I met the truck driver at our outdoor location and found him sitting comfortably in his cab.
I thought it was strange that he wasn't unloading the tables and chairs, but waited patiently for him to be ready and get started. Finally he turned to me and told me to get started. "Get started what?" I asked. "Unloading your cargo," he replied.
I had no idea what he was talking about. Every online order that I had ever made included the driver unloading the item from the truck. "Your order only includes transportation, not unloading," he informed me. Seeing that I had no choice, I asked him to at least open up the back door and show me what I was supposed to unload. In not-so-pleasant words, he told me that I could figure it all out myself.
Seeing that the truck cargo door was a solid three feet off the ground, I asked him to at least lower the truck's back ramp. "Nope, you didn't pay for liftgate service. If you want me to do that, it'll cost you 40 bucks," was his not-so-polite reply. Trying hard to stay calm, and not let his attitude unnerve me any further, my son and I climbed up the back of the truck and entered the cargo area.
Remembering a thing or two about unloading cargo trucks from my childhood days when my brothers and I would on occasion "work" in our grandfather's warehouse, I knew we had a real problem, Houston. I found our order back there, tightly wrapped and bound onto an individual wooden pallet. I pleaded with the driver to help me out, and even got the manager on the phone.
He apologized for the driver's attitude and promised that the driver would "do his best" to assist me unload. Magnanimously, the driver offered me a pair of box cutters to unpack the pallet and remove the boxes, so that my son and I could haul them down through the three-foot airspace to the ground.
But the icing on the cake was when we were all done and the driver asked me to sign for him. I took the order form and saw in large bold print the following: "Delivery driver: do not perform any accessorial services... except for liftgate which is preapproved."
Angrily, I showed him the paper and asked him why he wouldn't open the liftgate all along. He refused to apologize, and insisted I should be happy that he saved me $40. Whatever. Clearly Hashem was testing my patience in front of my son that day. Honestly, I don't know that I passed the test with flying colors. But thought about it a lot afterwards.
So much of the challenge was about misunderstood expectations. We went back to the original email and found in the fine print that our delivery actually did not include unloading. My expectation was that the cargo would be unloaded. The driver works for a shipping company that does not have any expectations from him to unload. They assumed that we, the customer, would be prepared to deal with that.
In life, many of our moral struggles are due to unexpected circumstances. It's important to build strong values, perhaps have a solid Mussar mantra to rely on when life throws us a curve ball. Here are some options:
We can't control circumstances, only how we deal with them.
If we come to expect the unexpected, it'll be a little bit easier to deal with them when they inevitably arise.
Happiness = reality/expectations.
I create my own reality.
There's always something to be grateful about.
This is good for my personal growth.
What lesson did I learn from this?
What can I do differently next time?
And finally, can anyone recommend a good shipping company?
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Koval
