… But more often I think people avoid it because they don’t want it.
After the day I had yesterday, I am quite sure that some people don’t care to learn what goes on in a situation. I’ve always known there are people out there who just don’t give a flying flip about making better of themselves, but this goes beyond that. I frequently say that “common sense” is no longer common. Yesterday was proof of that.
I spent a long time pursuing a relationship that I too was stone headed about. I should have taken the hint long before I did. I say this so that you know I, myself, am not immune to these bouts of stupidity. I have beaten myself up over that for long enough, but last night opened old wounds. My phone rings. Like an idiot, I answered it, even though I had no clue who was calling. The voice on the other end was instantly familiar. It was a person who I had hoped was out of my life since any attempt at a relationship with her daughter had ended. Heck, it destroyed a great friendship.
Immediately, my fuse was lit. Those of you that know me know I have a very long fuse. This person seems to have lit it about three quarters of the way to the blasting cap. Not only did the fact that it was who it was set me off, but then they had the gall to ask me computer questions. I work on computers all day and do not care to work on every Tom, Dick and Jane’s machine. It’s an annoying side to working in the electronics field. People think that you will fix their stuff for them free of charge and at a moment’s notice. I tried to remain calm and stated that I did not do side work anymore. I’ve been taken advantage of too many times. The person attempted to brush me off and continued vainly to try to attain information. I reiterated that I don’t do that anymore and am not interested. I then promptly hung up on her. I’m a pretty respectful person with a lot of patience, but I’m tired of this person thinking I’m her bestest buddy. The only reason I tolerated her was to spend time with her daughter.
Early that day, I ran into another breed of idiot. I aspire to, at some point in my life, make enough income to be happy. I don’t really know what the final path will be to that end, but I’m starting to realize that you have to sell off brain cells to become upper management. Apparently, it’s a rather high ratio of brain cells destroyed to dollars earned. I had thought of this particular idiot as a well versed person who knew his stuff… until the early round of emails yesterday. He proved his knowledge or lack there-of very quickly.
To make a long story short. We are working on a new office for our CEO. The systems that are going into this office are more robust than most of our business unit offices that our field workers work out of. As we went about our planning meetings in the days before, I noticed that the equipment going into the rack seemed a bit much for the single 15 amp circuit that the construction folks were installing. I quickly tabulated up the power requirements and made a written recommendation of a solution that would be quick and fairly cheap compared to its alternatives. I made sure to dumb down the information enough so that anyone could understand it. There are many different groups involved and I didn’t want anyone to be clueless as to why we needed to make this change. I’ve found it to be a much easier sell that way.
The email in question asked why I would want to add this when the unit they specified had enough outlets on it to plug everything in. I tactfully restated why it had to be changed and that it wasn’t the number of holes to plug something in that mattered, it was the amount of power the devices consumed that had to be taken into account. After several emails back and forth between myself, the lead project manager and this director, he finally caught on that not only would my solution provide the required power, but would take advantage of the fact that we had already purchased one device and had it on-site. His recommendation, by the way, was to buy a bigger device that would also have required the installation of a larger, more expensive outlet, I had already demonstrated this fact in my original document. I don’t mind training someone on calculating power requirements. I realize that many of you reading this won’t know exactly what I am talking about, but two factors popped my cork: 1) I had spent time laying out a very simple document that showed why we needed it and why we should do it that way. 2) This person is running our whole technology department, which means somewhere along the line he should have at least a minute understanding of power requirements, let alone the ability to read a plainly worded document that explained the situation clearly.
Any who, I went to bed last night aggravated that I had let myself get unglued. I didn’t fall asleep until about 6:15 this morning. I had to get up at 7 to go to work. Needless to say, today, I’ve been just a wee bit on edge. Maybe tonight I’ll sleep better. I can’t say as yet.