As I glanced through the wad of applications, it struck me how many pluses these people had. I held the applications of twenty-five perfect people in my hand.
And I didn’t know there were twenty-five perfect people in the whole world, let alone present and applying for one job.
What a brilliant cast! Not one of them had any faults. They were all perfect secretaries, perfectly trained and perfectly adaptable to circumstances.
Whether or not the job was a perfect job did not matter. What its policies were, did not matter. What systems it used, were unimportant. What ideals it held were insignificant.
So long as the hours were acceptable and the salary worthwhile, they could handle anything.
There were the unimpeachable all; not a wart in the lot.
Then I found one that cheerfully concluded ‘I’m a hopeless coffee- maker.’
She knew coffee-making was part of the secretarial routine and it could be her Waterloo.
But she admitted to a wart! She was willing to trade perfection for reality.
I recommended her.
And I thought of another Executive Director, God our Father, who doesn’t fail applicants because they admit to faults. He is looking for the genuine article, warts and all.
He grips your hand and says, ‘I didn’t come to find the perfect ones. I came especially for the faulty ones. I am looking for sinners. Are you one of the ones I am looking for?’
Elizabeth Price