Agggghh – it’s August already!
Hey – thanks everyone for the supportive words. We got the money back. I still can’t log into my Internet banking as I am putting off sitting on the phone for half an hour on hold to the bank’s call centre while it all gets sorted out. But all is fine. For now.
(As you can see, the past two years or so have turned me into a nervous wreck. Now, it’s all about the “So, what shit’s going to happen next?!” – I’m sick of it! I want calm! Give me calm! Being uptight and anxious about incident after incident is driving me insane and making me react to all sorts of seemingly minor things in a way I never used to do.
I used to be so carefree like a tampon ad. Now I’m like an insurance ad - worried about all the crap that can go wrong.
I mean – it’s this a normal movement in life stages? Does one pass from “tampon ad bliss” to “insurance ad anxiety” like one passes through young adulthood to middle age?)
At least it’s getting warmer. A bit. Well, better than the chill a couple of weeks ago. I hate winter. So gloomy. Can’t be bothered doing anything in the evenings.
Which also made me think – Sydneysiders generally aren’t very good at dressing for very cold weather. I was hopping from foot to foot whinging about how freezing it was when we went out with some friends a few weeks ago and one of them – from a much colder country – said “Look at how you’re dressed! You’re wearing a scarf but have no decent coat on – that lacy cardigan is full of holes - and you’re not even wearing socks!”
But you can’t wear socks with strappy shoes! What to do?
I am not a winter person. Not me. Brrr.
And all the spring bulbs I planted in my front garden – daffodils, hyacinth, anemones – are all going to bloom while I’m away! It’s making me cry! Noooooooooo!!! All that effort for lovely spring garden and I wont be around to enjoy it!
Oh – in case you don’t know – I’m off on holidays soon.
I leave in three weeks and get back mid September.
Malaysia and China.
China because I’m an invited speaker at a conference in Beijing (tis good to have a PhD sometimes!).
Malaysia because I haven’t been there in years and that’s where my most of the extended maternal family reside. Loads of cousins. Lots of yummy food! I’m looking forward to it – except that Hubby can’t come.
Apart from the fact that we can’t afford for him travel with me (my trip is being subsidised by a grant), he’s also really, really busy with his new company.
Really busy.
Which, in a sense, is great – they are really doing well.
I am proud of Hubby’s efforts.
His business partner is dating someone who works in PR whom he cannot break up with!! She has been extraordinary. She’s still a PR bimbette, but an extraordinary one.
I always thought PR people were as useless as HR people - and also those people who too much time in art galleries.
But now I know - it’s truly amazing the effect that a good PR person can have. Hubby’s company was in a half page feature article in one of the major metropolitan newspapers last weekend. The Bimbette has forged contacts with some prestigious companies and the boys are on the verge of signing a huge contract.
Except that’s where I stop being helpful.
I’ve re-wrote business proposals and re-worded both website and printed material. I’ve listened. I’ve given my advice and opinion when asked. I can do all that.
What I’m not good at is being endlessly supportive. Endlessly enthusiastically supportive.
I can’t say “OMG!! THAT’S SO GREAT!! W00T!!1” if I’m told “Guess what!? We may sign a huge contract with [insert major international company]!!”
I’d just say “That’s really good, keep working at it.”
I can’t count chickens before they hatch. I just can’t. I can’t be happy until I see the evidence.
Not just a signed contract, but also evidence that the new employees are working out, a good profit is being made, business growth is structured and controllable, and I’d also like to see a spreadsheet outlining the business plan.
That’s just me. Gimme results.
That’s when I celebrate.
Otherwise I muddle about nervously, hoping they don’t screw up/ no one tries to sue them/ they don’t go losing huge sums of money.
So where does that leave me? Am I a bad, unsupportive wife for feeling like this? Am I jinxing them because I’m not fully of bouncy enthusiasm like a puppy? Am I wrong for hating it that he’s so busy and preoccupied all the time now?
Because I just feel really selfish. I can’t help it.
13 comments:
Given the last couple of years and the huge mortgage, I think you're being realistic. You can't afford to waste energy on fake, happy, bubbly enthusiasm.
Ooh, have a great holiday.
Jezzy,
Glad you got the bank thing all sorted out.
I'd ask what you are speaking on in China, but I'm sure it's higher over my head than a space station.
So far as supportive, not to worry. Wives who are "bouncy puppies" are not really needed. The guys doing the business have already got an overdose of enthusiasm, lest they never would have tried it in the first place, but we do value "loving support". The kind you get when that little disappointment happens and an arm around your slumping shoulders and a warm kiss and a hug make it go into proper prespective,"just a little problem,...move on past it."
Have fun on your trip.
I think it's completely okay to wait to celebrate. I mean, if all the people in the world were full of bouncy enthusiasm all the time, life would be pretty annoying.
Hope you have a blast on your trip! You're gonna impress the heck out of all those other researchers!
At the risk of being typcast as a pessimist (hah, what are the chances??)... I think it's more important for a partner to be supportive at the lows than to be hyper-excited at the highs. Share in their joy, but if you've no interest... isn't faking it just lying to your other half?
Yanno.
Anyhoo.
Ahhh Jezzy, I think my wife and you would certainly have plenty to talk about!!
She has come along for the ride with me through a failed dotcom, non-paying asshole customers and near bankruptcy. I have seen her get to where she just got sick of hearing the same things... "they'll pay next week", "this time we've cracked it", "this deal changes everything". Saner partners would have walked out.
I know you feel like you're being disloyal, unsupportive, unenthusisatic, but trust me... you are making a big difference.
Hang in there. :)
"I always thought PR people were as useless as HR people"
Yeah, except without HR your employment contracts wouldn't be put together, meaning you'd be employed without having a clue about your entitlements or salary, you wouldn't have anyone to work on Professional Development, Leadership programs or retention strategies, noone to recruitment employees, nor would you have anyone to talk to and help you out if your boss or a colleague was bullying you at work.
Love how you made a sweeping statement there and felt you could cancel out years of someone's life. Because what they studied and put hours of their life into every week is just meaningless compared to what you worked for, after all.
Jeez, anonymous, keep breathing. I have to tell you - the HR department where I work is the most useless, ineffectual waste of resources ever. Harassment complaints go ignored, they play politics in lieu of any sort of professionalism and everything they touch turns to shit. Congratulations if you or someone you know is, yanno, transcendental to the stereotype, but I agree with Jezzy - I've yet to see any HR "professional" do anything more than screw up the pay or advise people to not submit valid complaints.
HR is a symptom of the encroaching corporatisation of the modern world, and whilst it may, at one point, have had some sort of prestige and vague nobility... it seems to have gone much the same way as law: highjacked by leeches and parasites. It has been corrupted away from being the force for the valid appreciation of individuals and their contributions and capabilites and turned into a legalised method for strongarming irrelevant, exploitative corporate policy... or worse, recruitment-agency-esque profiteering.
So stick your preachy self-righteousness up whichever orifice is closest, bugger off and give us some sort of proof that HR is more than a just a big, slutty corporate bitch.
Fuck you.
I don't think all HR people are bad, and I do have one good friend in HR here on campus. BUT I have had some HORRIBLE experiences with HR people in the past. My special pay paperwork is almost always done late, but I am not even referring to those little situations.
When I taught at a technical school, some paperwork wasn't processed for us to be paid. Now, we only got paid once a month. And this was our first check AFTER graduating from being poor grad students. (By "we" I mean me and my friend Lynley who graduated from the same program.) Anyway, the people in HR didn't apologize. They said they would pay us the next month. They could have cared less. When I broke down and said, "Please do something. I have buy groceries for my kids," the HR lady said, "Well, I used to have breast cancer, and it was tough to get through that, but I did."
What does that have to do with paying people for the work that they do????????
Then, in my current job at a four-year university, there was a survey which was designed to measure employee satisfaction. It was supposed to be 100% anonymous, but my supervisor, ever the model employee, found a way to get copies of the raw data. I blasted him in my survey, thinking it was anonymous, and after he read my survey, he began taking it out on me. When I got proof that he had the raw data and went to HR for help, they said that since I had not been employed for a full year at that point, I could not file a complaint. They didn't do anything about it at all. (This is at a research university, where ethical research gathering techniques is supposed to be a top priority.)
I think the problem, like with many other kinds of jobs - college instructors/professors (my job) included - is that if people have too much power over other people, they often let it go to their heads. They don't want to be troubled with other people's problems. And since that's part of the job description in HR, it means that the whole profession gets a bad rep because of the bad apples in the bunch. It only takes a few experiences like the ones I've had to make a person want to make a sweeping comment about the whole lot.
Correction: That survey thing was not my CURRENT job at the university. I work for awesome people now. It was at the same university, just a different job and different supervisor. I took an 8,000 paycut to get away from him when HR wouldn't help me, but good karma came back my way because being offered work on a grant too, and now I make WAY more than I did back then.
Ginchy – No, I can’t! And thanks for the well wishes. It’s not for a couple of weeks, but I’m starting to look forward to it.
Mr Guinness – it’s not high about your head! My research is very accessible and I’m sad that I not longer am a researcher. Thanks for the advice though – very wise.
JPD – For your first comment, thank you. For your second and third – proof of evil HR people! They are infecting the world!! But seriously, what is with the guilt trip about cancer? What’s that got to do with you not getting paid? How inappropriate. And as for the “confidential” survey – that whole story was terrible – I remember when it happened to you.
Deemacgee – yeah – I’m not a faker. Fakers get nothing out of it. And I love the way you say things, my dear, you have a way with words.
General_boy – sounds like you’ve been through a lot. It really does! I’m glad you’re so appreciative of your wife though – that’s very sweet.
Anon - I’m so sorry that no one likes or respects you. You are so, so right and you have enlightened me. What you’ve been studying so hard for really is, well, meaningless. It’s true! You’re right! Oh god! I feel so bad for you!
So show me on the dolly where the mean lady hurt your feelings.
So show me on the dolly where the mean lady hurt your feelings.
Innit, though!
(Sorry, that's my new catchphrase.)
Jezzy,
Thank you, most humble person, from a most "outspoken" "old fart"
Mr. Guinness
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