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Hi Warmup,
Today I'm dealing with my own crankiness when I'm super pressured. The pressure is the good kind, I guess. Many things are pinching in on me: onboarding a new client, daily steps drafting a report, politicking nuances to get my local Dear City government to act right by one of my clients, & keeping it together enough that I deceive my partner that I'm calmly handling all of this.
Truth is: I get cranky under mid-grade steady daily stress. Like now. The range of variance of anything that I expect to not pose a problem narrows a lot. Fur 'nstance — helping Sign. Other with her turbotax last night. It's late (twice she's asked for my help near one of my known time edges—the first time within a quarter hour of me needing to leave to go to a workshop, and last night right before I went to bed).
Alright, I put on a smile and we look at her questions. In the process she had papers scattered all over the place. One form she'd already entered, but on the paper 1099 she didn't make a note she had.
I said: take a pencil and make a note.
She: I'll do it later.
I: Please do it now, so you can know it's in & not have to remind yourself.
She: I'll do it later because you have only 15 minutes (a-hum ... & and why didn't you ask for help at 6:30, I thought).
I: Ten seconds to find a pencil & make a mark — ten … nine …
She: [looking about her desk] I can't find a pencil. And you only have 15 minutes.
I: Eight ... seven ... six ...
I: I'll extend it two minutes. Now you get 17 minutes. Five ...
She: [found a pencil] Found one. [marks the forms]
~
WTF? She asks for my help and then makes it hard on herself to accept it. It's get harder for me to keep offering it, now, and in the future. Notice she said "I had only 15 minutes" and didn't own up to at all to waiting to the boundary of my time. Geez!
I'm not 'doing' anything about this externally as in raising it with her. I did raise it the first time when she was asking for help and I'm on my way out the door. Never goes well as she has zero Mea Culpa genes. So now I wallow in my crankiness and wonder how to keep myself away from her on/off ask for help/refuse it pattern for the next 6 weeks.
Thanks for letting me rant. Feel refreshed.
Revu2
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