Once with T2, I had to wait well over 45 minutes and I knew T was in her office and the receptionist (this was at a mental health agency) told me it would be a few minutes. Well, 10 minutes late I was still OK ..... but when it became 20-25 minutes I started getting ticked. I was thinking, who/what is so much more important than being on time today .... When the door opened and this person came out, all dazed and eyes glazed over, I thought, what was this all about?! But I was still furious, because I had a HUGE thing on my mind too and had to sit there with it all that time, not knowing what was going on and if I would get much time or not.
Turns out the person had a really dire situation going on .... all T would say was, yes, it was that bad. And she had been on the phone trying to line up help and stuff for this person. So then I felt rather small for being so mad about it ..... and T missed her lunch hour to give me my full time, plus a few extra minutes.
It's so easy to get mad or start imagining the worst when something like that happens ..... when it really is that someone else is facing a severe emergency and it must be taken care of, even if it means we're left waiting. After all, as T2 told me, I would do the same for you, if you were in need like that, even if it meant someone had to wait and would be upset. (and she did later ..... to the extent of giving me a ride home when I had wrecked my mom's car, a run-in with a barbed wire fence, and had barely limped back into town for my appt....and tires were flat when I came out ...... then she came in to talk to my mom and help us figure out what to do with the car and so on ..... someone was sitting waiting back at the office for her that day, just as I had sat and waited while she took care of someone else's emergency earlier ..... it comes back around!)