Waiting

I'm onsite at a contract manufacturing organization (CMO) this week, here to observe the media fills for a client's runs.

If you've never been involved in pharmaceutical manaufacturing at a commercial plant, it's quite different from clinical or research manufacturing. The schedule is fixed weeks in advance, so you theoretically schedule your visit when all or the bulk of your work is to be done.

And then you arrive, and then life happens.

Of my three days here, the first day I got to observe the end of a run - starting at 12:oo AM and going until 2:00 AM. The second day was clean up, so I saw nothing. Today, I arrived at 8:00 to observe. However, due to personnel availability, the start of the run has been delayed, so here I sit. I have to leave at 4:30 this afternoon for the airport, so if I'm lucky, I'll get to see some of the filling process.

Manufacturing is like this.

But then again, this is a microcosm of life. Life is like this too, if I really admit it. We really like to believe we have control of all (or at least most) of the events of our lives, but how often are we stymied by events out of our control, or things that change, or things that fail or don't happen? At least for myself however, unlike the CMO environment, where I am understanding and patient, I tend to become impatient and lash out the people or circumstances around me. How do I reasonably explain this dichotomy?

The feeling of control, the control that I think I should have over all events in my life - but don't because it is simply impossible.

I need to be more patient and willing to wait - not just in work situations, but in all aspects of my life. The simple fact is, accept it or not, sometimes that's the way it is.