Office Oddities: Stephen

As part of my job, I spend quite a bit of time with teens (teaching classes, doing service projects, devotionals, fun activities, etc.), but I usually spend the bulk of my time during the week at the church office, doing office-type things.

Any time you work at an office (or really anywhere), you become aware of certain peculiarities and goings-on that are probably particular to your specific workplace.

My situation is no different, and it occurred to me the other day that there were a few interesting characters that I encounter on at least a semi-regular basis who I would like to introduce you to. When I do this, I’ll generally avoid using names to keep it anonymous, but since I'm talking about a 2-year old today, I’m not too worried about him being embarrassed.

Stephen is the youngest son of the church secretary, and he comes to work with her most of the time. Stephen is probably the best-natured little kid I’ve ever been around, and if he’s not smiling, you can usually get him to do so within about 12 seconds.

One of my favorite things to do with Stephen is to cheerfully ask him if he wants to take a nap. He always cheerfully replies “No!” and then tends to get riled up (as I said, it’s one of my favorite things to do, but it isn’t really one of his mother’s favorite things for me to do).

So I like Stephen a lot, but working around a 2-year old has its downside. I share an office with the church secretary, which means Stephen is generally in close proximity to my desk, and it’s not uncommon for me to come in and find my pens on the floor (missing lids), papers on my desk wrinkled or torn, and chocolate smeared all over my chair.

Yesterday, little Stephen managed to get his hands on a crayon, and proceeded to decorate the walls in the church foyer. He looked very contrite afterwards, and fortunately, we were able to get the crayon off with WD-40, so it wasn’t so bad.

Maybe my favorite memory of Stephen though was one day when he was throwing a fit, and to get his mother’s attention, he wrote all over his face with a brown marker. He looked pretty hilarious, so I took a picture of him with my phone and then printed it out and put it on my desk. After that, when he would act up and start fake crying, I would show him the picture of himself with marker all over his face and he would kinda act embarrassed and clam up.

I was pretty pleased with that method, but then one morning, I came into the office and found that Stephen had gotten a hold of the picture of himself and wadded it up. I guess he didn’t find it quite as amusing as I did.