Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Unexpected changes

If I have a complex but routine task to perform, I need to have an order in which I do it. The more complex and routine, the more I need that order. When I worked for the real estate agency a few years ago, I had a process for taking, entering and distributing listings. If that was interrupted or changed for any reason, even if the outcome was the same, I got very upset. Which was disturbing and probably confusing to those around me.

It can be managed. If I know that something will be changed in advance, I can game out the results, and if they'll matter or not - and how to make things work the way they should. I can also change routines if I learn a better/more efficient way of doing them. In fact, that can be fun. So long as I initiate the change or have advance knowledge of what the change will be or just that it will happen, I'm okay. A surprise is not a pleasant thing. Neither is not getting information in a timely way - or at all, as has happened. If my job needs this information, it's very frustrating when I don't get it. I want to do my job correctly.

Last week, I knew I had a shortened week because I was going on a weekend trip starting Wednesday night. I knew I had to make sure there was food to last until Monday for all the residents, especially for the diabetic individual dependent on me for everything. This, I knew, was possible.

Monday afternoon, I learned that this was not the fact. That all of the individuals would be going to the country for a vacation from Sunday to Wednesday, and therefore I would need enough of M's food to last until then. I learned this just as I was about to leave on Monday, and I was also LATE on Monday. If I'd arrived and therefore left on time, I wouldn't have found this out at all.

Now I had two days to do this sort of thing. Now, I actually was fairly on top of things, but it was still bad to learn this so late - presumably my house manager knew the week before. If not, it was really poorly done.

To make matters even worse, I got sick with a cold. My ability to function decreased. I slowed down. And I couldn't take any time off because of the trip. Tuesday was okay - just the beginnings, you know? Not bad. I was even able to drive 90 minutes to a neighbor's son's wedding. Wednesday, which was also the night we'd planned to drive to the country inn, I ran a fever plus my nose was on permadrip. I know everyone is different in this regard, but for me, that's the worst part of a cold. A runny nose just makes me totally miserable in a way that nothing else, even a bad cough or sore throat, can.

We decided to drive to the inn the next day, of course, and I took a car service to and from work instead of walking as usual. I could barely stand. My house manager merely told me to work with gloves (which I did, plus constant hand washing and purification.) And I was missing food. I'd taken out a lot of chicken to thaw the night before and it was GONE. It wasn't in the fridge, on the counter or even back in the freezer. I felt like I was going nuts.

I needed that food. I had some still frozen I could thaw in the microwave, but to lose food is just bad. I did take out the extra chicken. And then we found it. While I cook in one kitchen, there are actually two apartments, each with a kitchen. And it was in the other fridge because there wasn't room. And no one told me. And I was sick and non-functional and stressed and there was information I needed and I didn't have it.

I got through the day (I don't know if I made sufficient food for all the guys, but I did make enough for M) and got home and to bed, and was well enough (read, no fever and my nose had stopped running) to drive the several hours to the inn, and then another half hour to see my favorite Shakespeare comedy Love's Labors Lost, even if we took one of my least favorite people along with us. So it all worked well. And while we didn't get our normal room, we got a better one on the first floor. No complaints.

But I still arrived stressed and tired and determined to do nothing on Friday. And on Friday, I began to write this blog post on my phone using an app. And I lost the blog TWICE. Not only was this stressy and annoying but just writing about the events made me upset. Still happening. I've stimmed a few times while writing this. Not a relief, you see.

So, when I let this other person drive my car (and my husband and a third person) to a museum, and there were problems right away, I got very angry. I got even angrier later on, as I was helping in the kitchen, when my husband finally returned and it turned out this person got into a fender bender, scratching the car - my MOTHER'S car - and then, instead of going home, went to a second museum. I still cannot believe he did that. And he is NEVER driving my car again. He also spent all of Shabbat avoiding me, and when pressured (wanting a ride home, which he did NOT get as we had plans for dinner) gave a very unsincere apology. I'm over that anger, though.

I was very able to get a handle on that emotion.

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