"She thinks I'm real!"

I heard the most amazing story this morning; it comes from a book on psychology, although I don’t remember its name.

A family -- a mother, a father, a son and a daughter -- are sitting at a restaurant table, getting ready to place their dinner orders. When the waitress arrives, she asks each person at the table for his or her order. When she comes to the daughter, a five-year-old, the little girl says, “I’d like a hamburger, fries and a malt.”

The father says, “No, no, you’ll have [fill in something more sensible here].” The waitress keeps writing on her pad, then moves on to the next person at the table.

A little later, when the food arrives, the waitress puts down each meal in front of the person who ordered it. In front of the little girl, she puts down a hamburger, fries and a malt, and then leaves the table.

The little girl looks at her plate, then leans over to her father and whispers, “She thinks I’m real!”

I was so moved by this story, and then had a hard time putting my finger on why. There are probably many reasons -- not the least of which is how in touch I am with my inner five-year-old -- but oddly enough, I think some of it comes down to my job.

Let me preface this by saying that, although I really freak people out when I say this at the firm where I work, I love my job. I’m consistently shocked by that, because:

• a) I’m not doing what I would like to do in the long-term, although I’m doing something for which I feel incredibly valued;
• and 2) The firm is going through a pretty horrific merger/migration that’s been wearing everyone down for -- seriously -- years now. Entire departments seem to be going through mass depression. I myself was absolutely miserable in the job I had last year at the same firm, but this year, after leaving and coming back into a different part of the business, everything’s different. I can honestly say, most days, that I love my job.

What is it that’s so wonderful? There’s a lot of stuff: they really need me, they’re infinitely grateful for what I do, my boss and her boss are just wonderful -- I could go on and on. But the thing that amazes me is this feeling I get when I’m there, and I’ve had a hard time putting my finger on it, but I think the story above really gets at it. They think I’m real.