I used to paint belt buckles for a living. No, seriously, I did. I found this job listed as “Jewelry Assistant” in the classifieds. This small shop in the light industrial section of town actually churned out thousands of belt buckles. The buckles came in as finished bronze or pewter castings and went out colored with lacquer and/or epoxy resin. I got the job and loved being paid piecework.
The owner/boss was a guy who went by the name of “Cooper.” When I joined the shop, there was just himself, his niece and one other employee. Cooper could not be rattled by anything. Nothing seemed to faze him. Anytime anything went wrong, he would gasp, and exclaim in mock surprise: “THAT’S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!”
“Cooper, I used the wrong hardener and this is going to take forever to cure.”
“THAT’S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!”
“Cooper, the lacquer ran. I’ll have to clean it off and redo all of these.”
“THAT’S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!”
“Cooper, this batch of heart-shaped buckles has DUST in every one of them. So, we’ll have to buy these and they’ll have to rush us some more…at our expense, right?”
“THAT’S NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE!”
With one outburst of feigned amazement, he defused everything. He almost invariably got a laugh. It also allowed us to get on with it and actually deal with the issue.
Sometimes, when I think I’ve really messed up something, I hear Cooper’s voice reminding me that this is just one of those things. Don’t get all worked up about it.
Memory Bits 
