Think back to the last time you spent a first day on any job. How much did you have to learn on Day 1?

 

First of all, there were things like finding a place to park your car and finding the right department to go to. Then there were the various introductions to your coworkers, as well as filling out and turning in paperwork for insurance, contact information and the like. Then you had to figure out who reports to whom, who does what, when to speak, when to ask questions, and when to just be quiet and listen. There’s no doubt that the first day on the job can be a bit overwhelming, let alone the stress of learning to do a new job well. And it’s no different on a race team.

 

            The time-pressured atmosphere that swirls around a race shop is filled with the air of competition. People from different disciplines work extremely hard and under specific schedule restraints, while at the same time trying to be sure that their part of prepping a race car is done with a high level of excellence. Orchestrating the work from these different crews can be tough; learning to handle your own specific role within a certain amount of time can be incredibly stressful.

 

What you’ll find interwoven throughout the racing industry culture, however, is a thread of enjoyment and fun. After all, racing is a sport. And professional sport is filled with grown-up “kids” who are doing what they’ve done for years while trying to out-do the next team. What was learned on the playgrounds of elementary school is transferred to the race shops at the highest levels of the industry.

 

            What many fans don’t see are some of the fun and games that go on behind the scenes. One of the more popular rituals played out in and around the race shop is done at the expense of new hires—the people who have just been invited to help raise the level of performance within the company. Like many other employment situations, they will be assigned a supervisor. He or she will be sure they understand their role and are tasked accordingly. However, fun-loving as many in racing can be, those little tasks can sometimes be tantamount to a dog chasing its tail.

 

            One of the more popular tasks is sending a new employee running around the shop looking for a part called a “long weight.” As the new employee looks to do his or her job well, they will go from room to room, person to person for hours upon hours, getting the proverbial run around, searching for something that doesn’t exist. The joke is that it’ll be a “long wait” until the employee finds what they’re looking for. I once heard about a young worker who was asked to go search the race shop for a bucket of hydrogen. The budding “performance expert” looked nearly all afternoon until some kindly soul let him off the hook by informing him that he’d never be able to find what he was looking for.

 

            Such is the case in life as well. Quite often we can find ourselves running all around looking for things that we think will make us successful in the eyes of others. Many times, such pursuits turn out to be nothing more than a wild goose chase that leads to nowhere. But God never asks us to do anything that is without purpose and meaning. As well, that which he allows us to experience, no matter how difficult, will be useful toward shaping us into the kind of people he wants us to be.

 

            Are you looking for the right things in life—things that matter, things that make a difference for God? If not, you may as well be spending all of your time looking for the “long weight.”