A Mel Gibson Memory Involving God’s Cross
I believe God brought back a memory of Mel Gibson flying to Oakland Airport in his private plane in 1991. He was a Platinum Hertz customer. Managers were assigned to deliver cars directly to their private planes. As managers, we had to sign agreements not to delegate our duties to platinum customers to lower-ranked employees with union protection… for obvious and a few not-so-obvious reasons. I didn’t get assigned to deliver the car to Mel Gibson. They assigned me the toughest platinum business customers who were most likely to call our CEO with a complaint about poor service. Most of the complaints from tough platinum customers stopped immediately after I took over the brief encounters with our most cantankerous customers. No one understood why I was better at interacting with top business leaders. My only answer was that my goal was to expedite the transaction as quickly as humanly possible before they got annoyed. I had NO stars in my eyes.
However, my co-worker saw this as her opportunity to improve her reputation as a manager by impressing Mel Gibson with good service. She prayed he wouldn’t complain about her service.
I didn’t know he’d come to our airport until I saw her crying alone in our office after she delivered his car. He didn’t do anything wrong. But he wasn’t in a good mood, and he was in a hurry to get on his way. She told me he was annoyed with her. And her heart broke because she wondered if God was disappointed in her for not being a better manager to her employees before I came to work at this location. The memory that came back was a long heart-to-heart talk with her, encouraging her not to take his mood personally since he was like any other customer who wanted to get on the road after a long flight. For some weird reason, she hoped God would give her a sign that he wasn’t disappointed in her. She acknowledged that I was a better manager even though I had just started. She didn’t know why I was more successful than she was at resolving serious problems that improved the work environment for the lowest-ranked workers. She worked at Hertz for almost 10 years. She heard that I credited God for quick thinking, privately to a few reps who said prayers for me, since I proved to them I cared more about them than I did about climbing another rung on a corporate ladder. Since she was a Christian, she felt a little shame since those problems persisted during her management until I came along. You might imagine that many comparisons were made between the other managers and me. She was viewed as weak by many of the most respected employees. But what really hurt was when they claimed I was more of a Christian than she was. I took a leap of faith in private and told a few CSRs that God must have answered their prayers for me. So, in this Mel Gibson story, Lynn told me she felt like all the signs pointed to being a disappointment to God. And this was why she fought back the tears.
I asked her whether he was going to file a complaint with our CEO. That was my biggest concern.
She told me no. But she was still upset because she was more worried about God’s opinion of her than our CEO’s opinion.
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We had a little pep talk. I told her that I had many advantages over her in prior experience and a college education. I told her that IF God really did empower me, like I believed he did at times, then he wouldn’t want her to lose faith in God’s love for her. I also said that if I had been in her position, Mel would have probably been just as annoyed with me. The only difference is that I wouldn’t have taken it personally. I would have taken his cue and expedited the signing of the contract so that he could go on his way.
So, I told her that maybe God used Mel Gibson to bring us together for this heart-to-heart talk. And she felt much better.
Now, as I recall, the phone rang shortly after our heart-to-heart talk. It was Mel Gibson who called to apologize for his abruptness to a Christian woman. He noticed she wore a cross around her neck, and he saw her eyes filled with sadness when he was annoyed with her cheerful greeting.
Lynn insisted on apologizing to him if she made him feel uncomfortable, since he probably was tired of being overwhelmed with eager, star-struck fans.
I am pretty sure she asked him whether he believed in God, since she credited him with answering her prayer. And she shared with him my theory that God used him to arrange a heart-to-heart talk with another manager. He told her he called because he couldn’t stop thinking about her cross and felt bad about hurting a fellow Christian’s feelings.
Is it hard to believe that Mel Gibson called our CEO to praise the service he received at the Oakland Airport?
Doesn’t this story prove that God works in mysterious ways?
