For the last year I have worked out of my employer’s house. He had a couple of sales people in the den and I (barely functioning) endured the isolation of the spare bedroom. This week we rented and have been moving into an office. I should work in an office. I should not work in a spare bedroom.
My employer is also an alcoholic and an addict in recovery. Like any two addicts, we have much in common. We share a common language and a common solution to our problem. But like any two people, there are times when we can really get on each other’s nerves. In the past, on the occasions when neither of us were particularly “spiritually fit” I would simply leave. I would go work out of my house, or go out for lunch with my mom. I’d go take a nap.
I haven’t been able to employ any of those tactics for dealing with my reaction to the insanity of others this week because we have been moving; buying and installing computers and key telephone systems, painting walls, buying desks and chairs.
My boss is a visual person, but not particularly spatial, and color blind. I would suggest something for placement of desks and he would do it another way, and another, and finally two days later do it the way I had suggested in the first place. (The RIGHT way!)
My boss isn’t a gifted communicator. (“Hey, did you go over to that place and get those deals on that thing?”) He’s also not particularly fond of or good at listening. He and I get along in large part because I let him interrupt me and don’t insist that he hear or understand what I’m saying. My skill at intuiting the meaning of “that,” “those,” “there” and “them” carries us the rest of the way. In the middle of moving, though, somewhat weakened by the mental and physical stress, I’ve found myself to be somewhat less intuitive and somewhat more–what’s the polite word–bitchy. And while I’ve tried really hard to keep it together at work, I haven’t always been able to contain it outside of work. My boss and I share that trait. We allow our stress to rub off on the people around us.
I’m sure I’ve compounded the problem by stopping smoking. Again. I know, I know. I quit in March or April. After my lung surgery though, the insanity of wanting a cigarette won out. I suffer from cigarette addiction in exactly the same way the book talks about alcoholism. This could be the cigarette, the ONE, that will give me cancer and I will go crazy wanting to smoke it and not wanting to smoke it. Like every other time I tried to quit, after my surgery the insane idea won out and in a short period of time I was smoking as much, if not more, than before. I finally mustered the courage to try again last Friday afternoon. Just like with my posts on getting off crystal meth, I am posting about a day 5 off cigarettes again.
By the time I left the office today I had completed some of my real work, gotten the phone system installed and the phones programmed, had the network installed and the computers set up, found the ink cartridges, placed a change order with the phone company, unpacked a couple of boxes. And now I’m shot.
Now I’ll take a short nap and hope that when I talk to people tonight I’ll be able to treat them with love and tolerance.
One of my great, if not my greatest character traits is intelligence. I’m smart, damn it, and I know it. I was also raised in a family, a community and a culture that all place a high value on intelligence, so I feel valuable. Another trait is perseverance. “Quitters never win,” was an oft repeated admonition in the society of my youth. Taken together these are the kind of qualities that governments and industries are built of. There is little that cannot be achieved with intelligence and perseverance. They are qualities to be admired.
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