Work Now, Grieve Later? Umm . . . No Thanks

Monday morning, my wife is off to work already, and I’m scrambling to get one child to the babysitter, the other two to school, and myself to the airport. Running downstairs, my feet squish down into soaking wet basement carpet. My mind is racing as I try to find the source of the water.

Stealing an extra 45 seconds I don’t have, I narrow it down to either a washing machine hose or the piping from the sump pump. No more time. Will have to call my buddy to come take a look while I’m out of town for the week.

I grab my suitcase and run out to the truck. Piling in, I hear two of my children in heated argument. One of them pleads his case, begging me to intervene to sort it out.

Buckling under the stress of the moment, I snap, yelling at the kids, telling them I just can’t deal with it right now. I’m driving them to school and that’s all I’m doing. Nothing more.

Sitting at the airport gate an hour later, my heart sinks as I remember how I treated the kids in my moment of frustration. And now I was leaving for work and wouldn’t see them for several days.

Why did I snap like that? Why couldn’t I have just kept it together for 15 more minutes?

My mind wanders and I start thinking about work and duty. And I recognize the connection right away.

My job that morning—parenting—wasn’t finished, but I had clocked out anyway. The stress and frustration of the water leak and making it to the airport to catch my flight was too much, and my kids paid the price.

Oftentimes, in my work representing members, I’ve had to explain the labour relations principle of work now, grieve later. The boss denied your vacation request? Call the union later. You’re working now. Focus on the job. Your supervisor was rude while giving instruction? Fulfill your responsibility at work and deal with it afterward.

That Monday morning, I was reminded just how difficult that request can be. In the heat of the moment, when we are under stress, we don’t always do as well as we hope to. We don’t want to work. We’ve had enough and we want to vent or escape, and we want to do it NOW.

The next time I’m helping a member who is dreading returning to work the next day due to a workplace conflict, I’ll try to be mindful of how difficult it is to live out the principle of work now, grieve later. It’s not an easy rule to follow. At times, it can demand a tremendous amount of self-restraint and emotional maturity.

My water problem? Turns out it was just a bit of ice in the outside pipe, which caused the sump pump to back up, pushing water through a loose connection inside. All the water has dried up, with no damage to our home, and it only cost $9.81 worth of supplies to reroute the pipe to ensure the backup doesn’t happen again.

It certainly wasn’t worth losing my cool—and forgetting I had a job to do.