Combat Parking in Life

After coming back from a lunch with a coworker in his car, he pulled ahead of the open parking spot and proceeded to back in. I hadn't thought much about it until he apologized.

"Sorry. Combat parking. It's a habit."

My coworker served in the military prior to coming to work for my company, as did an increasing number of my coworkers lately. This is not a new thing. I have had coworkers in the past leave to go into the military, leave for reserve duty and several who had a distant past involving military service; however, it is only recently that most of these coworkers are now younger than me and are returning from places like Afghanistan and Iraq where active duty means more than just simply and safely serving our country.

Combat parking, I understand, is parking in such a way as to allow the quickest exit. The time you may have to park may not be time you have to leave. The difference can mean your life. Therefore, combat parking is a difficult habit to break, even well after returning home.

Another coworker recently divulged to a few of us that he is divorcing his recently married wife. They were married less than a year ago. This was a second marriage for both of them.

It occurred to me that my divorcing coworker may have a life habit of combat parking when it comes to relationships.

I recalled a conversation a few days before his wedding.

"Well, we'll see who moves out. Me or the cat."

He is allergic to cats and his fiancé's cat was very old. The cat did not appear to be moving out any time soon. While he tried to seem like he was joking, his tone let on just how ready he was to bail at the first sign of trouble. In the end, the cat went peacefully. My coworker, it seems, did not. His anger at other topics mentioned early on seemed to become bigger issues rather than somehow resolving on their own. What he had envisioned would happen is something I don't know and could never now ask.

He did share that he still had been splitting his time between an apartment some distance away to allow his youngest son to graduate from the same high school. So, it seems he combat parked allowing for a speedy exit.

This made me think about attitudes about life in general. There is yet another coworker who threatens that she is just going to quit if things go a certain way or a decision is decided against her recommendations. Yet she stays. In private conversations she shares with me everything wrong on any given topic, my pick.

Rather than practice combat parking she appears instead to be dug in, sharing her fox hole with others around. It has become my habit to listen, to sympathize and more often than I would prefer, to share in her observations of how life in the trenches sucks. Yet I understand somehow that if I did not share in this way that I would become a target. Which of these choices is better I didn't know until recently. Only now I realize that when I join her, my misery is all the greater with only trench mouth to keep us company.

I have always believed in full engagement in my career and believe this has aided in my success, combined with a good measure of luck and hard work. If I cannot engage, then I endeavor to find somewhere else where I can. As a result, I have changed jobs more often than I care to admit.

Tomorrow is Monday and I look forward to work, even knowing my day's challenges will be great. When I focus on my job and the things I do well, I have far more luck engaging fully. It is only when I succumb to temptation and join my trench partner that the world seems hopelessly dark and gloomy. Life isn't perfect; work is usually even less perfect, but feeling like I gave it my all at the end of the day, even if I do back into my parking space from time to time so that I can hurry home to my husband and one year old dog Sophie  - this is really all that matters.