Awl in All

{On Saturday I send out a “Saturday Story.” This is simply a break from the regular Scripture-based daily devotional. Sometimes there is a moral to the story, sometimes it's just a story. I’ll mostly leave that to you to decide. I hope you enjoy it and your weekend.}

Back when I was a young man, just married, not far removed from high school, still skinny, and just getting started in adult life, I worked for a communications company. My father-in-law helped me get the job. He was the head man at the local electrical workers' union, and this company had union-skilled workers.

I had worked my way up from being an apprentice, to an installer, to journeyman status over a few years with the company. I had experience with business phone systems, hospital patient call systems, paging systems, and even fast-food drive-through systems.

One particular day I was finishing up installing a phone system in a new office building of a law firm. It included a dictation component that was new to me. But I figured it out and had everything installed and working. The last detail was putting a cover plate on the wall over some wires by the receptionist’s desk.

The employees had moved in and begun using the building and we were getting them up to speed on the phone and dictation systems. This was just a small detail that hadn’t been taken care of because we didn’t have a cover plate that would work. I had to adapt and repurpose a cover from something else.

I was sitting on the floor near the receptionist's desk. She was doing her work and also watching me do mine. The floor itself was a beautiful hardwood parquet flooring. The expensive stuff. As I was figuring out how to make a cover plate, I realized I would need to make a hole for a mounting screw in the plastic cover I was modifying.  

So, I took the plate, set it on the floor, and pulled an awl out of my tool pouch. Just as I was getting ready to drive the awl through that plate, the thought struck me that if it went through the plate it would mar the floor and I would be in big trouble, both with the lawyers and my boss. Without thinking, I picked it up, set it on my thigh, and drove the awl right through the plastic plate and into my leg.

I looked up and saw the receptionist looking at me with wide eyes and excused myself. Getting up, I hobbled over to the nearby restroom where I proceeded to pull the awl out of my thigh.

Having a journeyman’s license (or a degree, or diploma, or a title) isn’t a guarantee you won’t stab yourself with something sharp.

awl