The other day, as I was getting ready to go outside, I noticed that I had an opossum the size of a water buffalo in my backyard. Okay, maybe not quite that big, but still pretty good sized. It was daytime and he was just wandering around slowly and somewhat aimlessly in the yard. I went out the front door and circled around the house to put a fence between us and check things out.
The opossum barely acknowledged me and seemed to be limping a bit. I couldn’t tell if it was sick or what – I found out later they are just like that.
We regarded each other for a few minutes, then both went about our business. He was gone when I checked later in the evening. I also may have seen a new neighbor – there was a guy looking at the opossum through a gap in the fence that separates my yard from the house that had been vacate since I moved in. I said hello and waved and he waved back – and then took off without saying anything. Hmmm… was he scared of the opossum – or of me?
The next day, I smelled skunk when I walked outside. Opossum, skunk, cats, demonic slugs? What’s next?
Back in January I got a tooth pulled. While I was really nervous about the process, it was almost no big deal and I had little pain and a quick recovery time. Unfortunately, my insurance hasn’t paid for it yet. The dentist’s office keeps submitting it and it keeps not getting paid – and the insurance keeps saying they aren’t getting it.
Now, I like a good conspiracy as much as the next guy, but I kinda doubt some enemy of mine is intercepting the request for payment in an attempt to ruin me. I’m guessing it’s just some flaw in the system. So, I’ll need to make another call to the dentist because I got another bill and listen to how their local office tells me it’s been handled and their corporate office keeps not knowing that. Grumble.
The student government online elections kicked off last night and despite my protests that I have a life (and it’s mostly playing video games, okay?), they keep scheduling the launch after hours. So, at 7:00 I fired up my computer and launched the ballot. I also checked my work email – which was a total mistake.
As usual when I check my work email after hours, I got a message that totally pissed me off. And by “pissed off”, I mean I swore so loudly and fiercely that I scared my cat.
Deliberately obstructive, difficult, inflexible, arrogant, passive-aggressive, and self important.
In one email.
I’m not sure I could do that if I had a team of jackasses helping me – it was impressive in it’s terribleness.
I fumed, I raged – but I did not reply to the email. Because I’m not stupid.
Instead, I tried to work out my frustrations killing monsters in Diablo 3.
Didn’t work. The game was lagging hard and my poor little wizard was getting her ass kicked because her spells wouldn’t fire. You know how it goes.
So, I bundled up and took myself for a walk in the bitter cold and driving snow. I was out there for about an hour – including a trip to Rite-Aid for some snacks.
And it helped. I got past being angry and moved on to how I usually work around people like this – by being more clever.
I came up with 5 contingency plans and mentally worked on a calculated email response. I need to follow up on a couple of leads this morning and then I’ll respond. I’m going for a quick re-read of the message and then an overly friendly and sickly sweet and helpful response. Kill them with kindness. If only that really worked…
Why are people like that? Even worse, the work I’m doing on this project is going to help our students directly. To obstruct that is to go against why we’re all here.
Ugh.
So, another busy day at work – better get to it.