Escape Pod Dreams - 111
Created | Updated Nov 11, 2005
Escape Pod Dreams: The Nervous Issue
Don't Worry About It!
I've spent a lifetime being told that I am too sensitive and too anxious.Never mind that I often am justified by research or later developments. 'Don't worry, it'll be all right,' is one of my co-worker's favorite phrases. Never mind that he is a 50/50 prognosticator. He won't remember what he said fifteen minutes later. Once I told him something was not right, he said, 'I've been a maintenance man for twenty years, I know what I'm doing.' Then I pointed out that he was going to apply the adhesive to the wrong surface and he said, 'Oh, okay.' Not a clue.
Now, I have had many people say that having me watch them makes them make mistakes and that if I would only leave them alone, then everything would be okay. So I come back later and find something wrong and tell them and then they say, 'You only noticed it because you were looking for something to criticize.' Not a clue.
Believe it or not, these kinds of peoples makes mes nervouses!
I had the same co-worker, who is now on last-chance probation for various reasons, tell me petulantly the other day, 'Everybody makes mistakes, but apparently not you.' I said, 'Sure I do, I can give you a list.' 'So can I,' said he. But what I didn't say, because I already know that he doesn't understand my antipathy to truisms, is that while 'everybody' makes mistakes, some people are just carrying on with a deviant series of life choices, so we are not talking about 'honest mistakes', but a continuation of what I consider to be a life of crime.
A truly mature and aware person is conscious of the need for lifelong learning. A mere wannabe adult, on the other hand, believes that if you really like them, you'll let them be, clean up after them, and chalk any problems you have with them up to your experience, because they damn well aren't going to gain any any time soon.
PLEH!