NOTE: Dripping with sarcasm intended
Why not make sure you're doing what really fulfills you!
Go beyond assuming what it is you think is going to simply make you 'happy'
(for what is that, anyway?) and really get to the guts of
why your bad day has to affect others so much.
And me.
Think it's not that simple? Come on. That's a time-worn cop-out that really deserves some proper consideration and debunking if you think it's too hard. Why is it too hard? Why is it not that simple? Why is it so complicated to even try?
And anyway, why am I ranting, you ask? And putting questions in your 'mouth' as you read? Which you're not even probably thinking?
Well! Let me tell you a story....
It all started with a not-so-little freight company - rhymes with Poll Eyepeck - whose motto is "If it's URGENT". And I think that's where they expect potential clients to assume if it's urgent we'll deliver it quickly. My experience has been "If it's urgent, we won't know unless you call and hound us. And even then, we can only quote what it says here to say on our screen. And if you're a home business, you can't possibly be important enough to have any urgent parcels. We are far too big and far too important winning over our large freight consignments."
But, oh yeah. Those large wins? That your sales people go out and procure for you, Poll Eyepeck? Yeah. Here's the big FAIL in your plan: those large consignments are actually broken up into single deliveries. Mm-hmmm. Sucks to be you, I know. Sympathies. But..... YOU'RE A FREIGHT COMPANY!!!! That is what you DO! That is the whole reason for your existence.
I have been given the reason this morning for this lack of service as (and I quote), "residential deliveries are hard. There are homes everywhere." So the drivers basically go do their industrial estate drop-offs and pick-ups and, if time permits, they'll drive a parcel to a residential address.
Let me describe what my parcel has been subjected to:
Last Friday, my goods left my supplier's warehouse. All paid for up front, the parcel was handed over into the laps of the parcel delivery gods. For, from this point, it seemed to do a version of the hokey-pokey -
"You put the parcel on the truck, you drive the parcel about,
You finish your shift and you shake the parcel out
You do the hokey-pokey and you leave it at the Depot
(everybody clap!) And pick it up to do again to-morrow."
That happened not once, but three times. Yes. For THREE days, my parcel went on the truck and - by some decision made by the driver who doesn't know me, doesn't know what's in my parcel, doesn't even care that I need what's in it, I would hazard a very secure guess - was booked back in to the depot at the end of the day because it had been undeliverable. NOT because he had attempted to even get to my street, but because he ran out of time and made it nowhere near my house.
Now.... this smacks of poor time management. Yes, couriers are busy. Yes, a lot is demanded of them. Yes, they are probably underpaid. But, Sunshine, SO AM I!!!!
Try being a mother.
Unpaid.
In over-demand all day long.
Unthanked.
Unacknowledged.
Them come tell me your woes.
There are plenty of jobs that could be given the same overview. Point is, Mr Courier contractor in your van driving around the 'burbs but avoiding all the residential drop-offs because they're inconvenient to your day: Your job entails delivering parcels to the address that is on them. AmIright or amIright? Is that a part of your job that SUCKS? Hmmm. Poor you. Guess what! A Urologist had to amputate a trapped earthquake survivor's leg last week in Christchurch. Think that might've sucked too? Not exactly part of her job role, but had to be done. And guess what else! A nappy-wearing baby with gastro ain't no walk in the park either. Not exactly what a parent signed up for (hoped fervently not to encounter) BUT... if it happens, it has to be dealt with.
Much in the same way as my piddly, annoying little parcel in your van, Mr Courier contractor. It's the thing that niggles until you do it. And you don't get reprimanded either way, do you, whether you deliver it today or not. Hmmm? If you, oops, ran out of time today and you, oh well, have to log it back in to your local depot tonight, does it become someone else's problem tomorrow?
OH TO BE A COURIER!!! Imagine if even half of us had a job function that meant we could just shove things in the bottom drawer so that they become someone else's problem on shift change-over! Wouldn't the world be a much happier place as long as we were not put out in the course of doing our jobs?
YOU DON'T LIKE YOUR JOB? LEAVE IT!
Can't pay your bills or your mortgage if you quit your hated job? Well, then, MOVE!!!!! To a cheaper house, to a quieter lifestyle. Do less. Buy less. Use less. Find a new job.
Can't find a new job? Well, then........ I think you know what you have to do - if you have decided you have to stay in the house you're in, paying the bills you do. You have to just suck that job up, I'm afraid. But if you DO make those choices and decide that your mental and longterm physical health is the sacrifice you're going to live by, then please. Stay consciously aware that you are there in that job because you have chosen to be there. You are not "stuck" there if it has been your choice - weighing up all your factors for living - and you can decide to see it as earning a living. Aren't you lucky you have a job! Now, buck up, and stop spreading your grumbles and grievances about how hard it all is on everyone who has to utilise your company's services.
YOU HAVE CHOICES, PEOPLE!
I get so angry (hmmmmmmm, can you tell?) about this growing mentality that borders on self-obsessive madness. That somehow, because YOU are unhappy - and in this case, I am laying unfair blame on the courier driver who I haven't even met yet and is possibly the happiest man/woman alive, how would I know - the rest of us have to be subjected to your decisions because you have a care factor well below what it ought to be for the job you do.
GRRRRRRR. I have decided I had better not get behind the wheel today. I may just be unable to control the need to run into contractor post/parcel delivery vans at random.
