Don't sweat the small stuff

Customer service is not quite as easy as it might first appear.  Take for instance my journey this afternoon to the local hospital.  I take my turn every week on call for sacramental emergencies, so when I received the call this afternoon to visit with a patient, it wasn't long before I was on my way.

Protocols abound in places such as hospitals.  Where should clergy and other volunteers park when they arrive?  What procedures should we follow so that we can be easily identified by hospital staff?  Where can we go in the hospital and where should we not tread? Who should we speak to in case an unforeseen circumstance comes about?  All the little things that people lying in the hospital beds should never find out about.

So it happened that today I made my way to the waiting patient and the family who were there as well.  Sacraments themselves don't take an abundance of time to celebrate (understanding the profundity of what we are doing is another question altogether), so before the gathered family members were more than barely aware that I was there, I was gone.  I continue to pray today for safe passage for the one who must return home, but my 'adventure' at the hospital was just beginning.

According to the established protocol, clergy are supposed to check in with security when we are leaving the premises.  The guard will then arrange to open the gate of the parking area to let us out.  As it happened today, all but one of the security guards were occupied with another emergency, so this person had to wait until the first emergency had been dealt with ... a period of only about 15 minutes (but 15 minutes can seem like an eternity sometimes).

Trying to understand the predicament that the security people must have been in, I chose then to watch the parade of figures who were entering and exiting the hospital (better to distract my mind rather than to become too obsessed with the fact that I was being detained.  Besides, these are often moments of grace when we learn a bit about stepping back and giving thanks that God is God, and we are not.

Eventually, my 'companion' appeared, complete with a set of keys, ready to remove all barriers from my escape route (or so I thought).  As it turns out, the guard who was sitting at the control desk should have called another department and asked one of the ER security personnel to let me out of the parking lot.  Off I went, to await his imminent arrival ... or so I thought.  Eventually, patience wore thin and I ended up just paying the exit fee.

Remind me why I love the administrative layers!