Today we consider the role of the ‘dreaded moment that wasn’t as bad as I thought it was,’ because one of those moments figures today as a frontrunner for ‘best moment of the day.’

I hesitate to include it, because I don’t want to reward the behavior of thinking everything is going to be awful, just so I can be pleasantly surprised when it doesn’t bite as hard as I thought it would. That behavior is one of the traits I’m trying to extinguish in 2013.

But it was still a good moment. I had gotten into one of those deals at work where my best customer (a vice president I just love working with) had asked a random email question over the holiday that filled me with terror…had I forgotten to take care of a sensitive issue that spanned several divisions of the company? Had I mishandled it? (Note to self, for when I look back at this and scratch my head and wonder ‘what the hell was THAT?’: mdpr. That sez it all.)

As it turned out, I hadn’t forgotten, and I hadn’t mishandled. I was so relieved, after several days of searching through archived email and old meeting notes, that everything was okay, it almost felt like A Great Thing.

Traffic heading in was unbelievably and unexpectedly light. Nice.

A highly valued coworker came back to work after more than a week back, and our work on our joint project was more fun.

Highlights of the day, indeed.

© E. Stocking Evans 2013