HERE, YOU DID IT AGAIN! I CAN’T believe you’re so stupid!” The project manager raged at Jim, his assistant, who remained silent and sullen. In the large architectural firm in which I worked, everyone in the open-floor office easily heard the barrage. But hardly anyone paid attention to what had become Jack O’Malley’s* regular outbursts.

New Country, New Experiences
For the past four months in 1959 my twin brother, Steve, and I, recently arrived immigrants from Communist Yugoslavia, had been working in this architectural firm, which employed 400 architects. In midtown Manhattan it had two locations, the main office, which occupied two floors that overlooked two city streets, and a branch office across the street from the United Nations building.

Though my brother and I both spoke fluent French, German, and Russian, besides our native Serbian language, our knowledge of English was limited, as Marshal Tito considered English a capitalistic language and had not allowed it to be taught in any of the schools we attended. Most firms to which we had applied for work required “American experience,” and when this firm hired us without it, we were grateful. Many immigrants were not as fortunate and had to find menial jobs in fields other than their own.

Questions for Personal Reflection or for Use in Your Small Group Have you ever worked with a difficult boss or supervisor? How did you try to reduce tension in the workplace? What worked? What didn’t? Is a Christian somehow obligated to be involved in the solving of office political standoffs? Why? Why not? What specific biblical counsel can you cite that might be useful in dealing with office squabbles (for example: “A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger” [Prov. 15:1, NIV])? Does a Christian attitude in the workplace guarantee the absence of workplace tensions? Why? Why not?

When English failed us, we reverted to one of the other languages spoken by the many European architects whose years-earlier adjustment to American life still remained fresh in their minds. In New York we learned “chicken measurements”—as I called inches, feet, and yards—as opposed to the simple metric system. Because my English was somewhat better than my brother’s, I was assigned to a group of architects in the main office. Steve worked at the nearby branch office.

This day, just as Steve arrived at the main office to deliver a set of prints, he heard O’Malley’s angry outburst for the first time.

“Fix this thing!” O’Malley demanded of Jim. The wire on the parallel bar of his drafting board had broken. Frustrated, he was unable to install the new wire himself.

“I don’t know how,” Jim replied timidly.

“You don’t know how,” O’Malley mimicked Jim’s words sarcastically, planting his fists on his hips and grimacing. He then shouted, “I can’t believe you’re so dumb!”

“Well, if you’re so smart, how come you can’t fix it yourself?” Jim suddenly snapped back.

“Ooooooooh!” A chorus crescendoed across the floor as surprised heads lifted and turned toward the two figures. Coworkers’ faces grinned with amusement and anticipation.

This was the first time Jim had barked back at O’Malley, who stood stunned, mouth open wide and eyes flaring.

Hazardous Duty
Disturbed by what he had just heard, Steve approached my desk. “I know how to change the wire. Maybe I should help,” he offered.

“Are you kidding? Steve, stay away!” I warned my brother sternly. “It’s not your problem.” I was the elder twin by 10 minutes and expected him to heed. But as I watched, he turned away and in total disregard of my admonition walked toward the still-fuming O’Malley.

“What do you want?” O’Malley spurted at Steve as he approached.

“Mr. O’Malley, may I help? I can fix wire,” Steve’s voice was enthusiastic and his smile genuine, but he spoke with a decided accent.

“You! Why, you can’t even speak English. Who are you, anyway?”

“My name is Svetozar Vitorovich. Call me Steve. I work in other office,” Steve said with a shy smile, and then proceeded to bend over O’Malley’s drafting table.

With his fat fists on his portly hips, O’Malley watched Steve with his usual authoritative and intimidating stance.

Steve removed the screws on the parallel bar, pulled out the broken wire, carefully threaded the new wire into the parallel and around the board, and tightened it. Then he moved the parallel up and down to test it. Satisfied that it worked, he straightened up and grinned. “There, Mr. O’Malley, it’s fixed.”

“Well, well, well,” O’Malley’s big voice bellowed. He looked both pleased and surprised. Large and imposing, he stood there carefully scrutinizing the young immigrant, looking him up and down. “Tell you what,” he said after a moment’s reflection, “to show my appreciation, I’m going to request that you be assigned to my group.”

O’Malley’s words sent muffled snickers sputtering across the floor. Assignment to O’Malley’s group was the thing most dreaded by every architect in the office. They had been around long enough to know that Steve had just been sentenced to cruel and unusual punishment.

Sitting at my drafting desk about 30 feet away, I shook my head and gave Steve an I-warned-you-but-you-wouldn’t-listen stare as O’Malley bounded toward the president’s office at the other end of the floor and disappeared inside.

From somewhere on the floor a voice called out: “So much for being a good Samaritan.” Laughter rippled throughout the open room.

One of the architects came up to Steve and said sympathetically, “Steve, you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into. The man’s a terror.”

When O’Malley returned, his ruddy face wore a broad grin. He walked straight toward Steve, who was ready to return to his office.

“OK, it’s official. You start with me two weeks from Monday,” he announced proudly.

No-frills Christianity
On the designated Monday Steve moved to the main office and joined the group of seven architects over which O’Malley was project manager. During the preceding days Steve had made a decision to do everything he could to please his new boss. Was he not an American now, grateful to have a job and to live in a free country? He had determined he would demonstrate his appreciation by accepting and trying to understand the man who was now his boss.

Each day that week I watched Steve cheerfully go about his work. When O’Malley appeared impatient, Steve was quick to offer help. When Jim mixed up the shop drawings for the Baptist church they were working on and O’Malley began to growl, Steve helped them reconcile the problem. The shop drawings for the stained glass windows from Paris were in metric measurements and written in French; Steve knew both. “What would I do without you, Steve?” O’Malley was heard to say.

Having learned from me that my project manager sometimes drank too much at lunchtime, Steve recognized that a long lunch usually meant drinks that might bring on a fit of temper afterward. So when O’Malley returned late from lunch one day obviously having had a few drinks, Steve was very careful. He gave O’Malley his phone messages and told him he had informed callers that O’Malley was attending a luncheon meeting. Steve outlined the work he had accomplished that morning and during O’Malley’s absence. O’Malley loved Steve’s approach and input, and Steve quickly gained his confidence.

When Steve went to ask O’Malley, a staunch Roman Catholic, for permission to leave early on Fridays to be obedient to his religious convictions, he began with a hopeful smile. “I need to leave half hour early on Fridays, but I can come in early that day,” he said, pausing under O’Malley’s scrutiny.

“What can I say, Steve?” O’Malley replied, striking his familiar pose. “How can I say no to you?”

“You can’t!” a brave voice yelled from somewhere in the room far enough away that O’Malley could not identity the source.

“You’re lucky to have him!” another chimed in.

“I have no problem with that,” O’Malley told Steve, ignoring the shouted remarks. “Just be sure you make up the time.”

Over the following weeks O’Malley’s temper still flared, but not nearly as often as before, and seldom at Steve. Nothing was too hard for Steve to do for his boss. Steve was competent, but more than that, he had grown to love O’Malley in spite of—or perhaps because of—his need.

A year later, when the Baptist church project that Steve had been working on in O’Malley’s group was completed, Steve was free to go. When O’Malley asked him to stay on in his group and work on the next project, I was not surprised when Steve said yes. Over the next four years I witnessed their relationship continue to grow until the day Steve and I left the firm for another job.

“I’m going to miss you, Steve,” O’Malley said in parting, his voice uncharacteristically subdued. I watched Steve reach out for O’Malley’s pudgy hand. “If you ever change your mind, you know you’re always welcome in my group,” O’Malley said, and he wrapped Steve in a bear hug.

During the following years Steve and Mr. O’Malley kept in touch with phone calls and occasional cards. Some 20 years after Steve left the firm he received a phone call from Mrs. O’Malley. She called to say that her husband had passed away and that, at her husband’s request, Steve was invited to the private family funeral service.

“If someone forces you to go one mile,” said Jesus, “go with him two miles” (Matt. 5:41, NIV). This counsel, practiced conscientiously, was not only the basis of an unlikely but long-lasting friendship between Steve and Mr. O’Malley; it was also a reflection of the love God calls us to demonstrate in our personal and professional lives. Only God knows who else in the setting of a professional office also caught a reflection of God’s love as a result.

*pseudonym

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Voya Vitorovich is a retired architect; his wife, Ann, is a freelance writer. They live in Surprise, Arizona.