Every so often my job, which seems normal enough once you’ve been doing it long enough, takes an odd turn. That was my day yesterday. I need to preface this story with some background. There is an organization that my boss studies with and promotes, that is based in the Philippines. They have two headquarters in the U.S., one on each coast. The people in the West coast office are in charge, the people on the East coast are subordinate. The East Coast people have their shit together. Everyone I have dealt with in the West Coast branch is an idiot. Rather, let us say that the people who manage the retail of books associated with the “teachings” are idiots. They routinely miss bill us, send us randomly wrong items, it can take months to get an order. They have packaged CDs, books, and special certificates all together in single box with no packing materials, such that half of a thousand dollar order needed to be returned because they neglected four dollars in packing materials. We’ve had CDs arrive that were produced in such a way as to be unplayable. I keep a digital camera handy for when their orders come in. My patience with them is thin at best.
Ordinarily if you received a package that was damaged in transit perhaps you would not accept it. Yes, it could have been packed more efficiently, or it could have been handled better by UPS etc. What do you do when the object being shipped to you is sacred? The object has been specially blessed by a Master of a Tradition such as to enhance the prosperity of all who come within the influence of its energetic emanations? Well, the answer is that you accept it and tell you boss that the East coast office, as I said before, are idiots. This sacred item is a wall hanging, let’s call it a poster, that was placed between two pieces of cardboard. Now they did included bubble wrap on both sides of the poster and wrote “Fragile Do Not Bend” on both sides of the packaging, however bubble wrap hurts and doesn’t help posters in transit. Rocket scientists in the Weimer Republic discovered that rolling posters up and placing them in cardboard tubes was an effective method of shipping them across Germany, but there are unfortunately no rocket scientists in the West Coast office.
To compensate for the damage and disrespect that said sacred object had been shown it was decided that it needed to be framed that day and hung up on the wall. Fine, I accepted the challenge and started calling local frame shops. “We have a two week turn around.” “Today, sure, but it has to be a metal frame” Finally I find a place in downtown Clayton and take the sacred item up there – making sure that I carefully protect it in a large metal poster rack that we use for retail in the store. I’m not halfway there when I get an upset call from my boss on my cell phone. He is shocked that I have taken it out of the building but doesn’t tell me that, he just wants assurances that it will be back today. Apparently he was much more upset when he found out I’d taken it, but was reassured by my voice. He had wanted me to go buy a frame and bring it back so we could frame it here.

There is more to this story but I’ll have to finish it later as I am out of lunch hour.