Tuesday, September 01, 2015

If you're a particular person, which I admit I also am... you cannot say "I don't care" or punt to someone else to make a decision and then come back and have a fit that something isn't the way you would have done it. You see, you need to either shut up at this point, or recognize your own personal limitations (being too particular for your own good) and express your directives up front. This is especially critical when you are leading something and everyone must get things past you.

Further, you cannot impose your nit picks on one person but allow another to do whatever they see fit with the assumption that you will have someone else's change the first person's completed effort to meet your standards. No one wants to be on clean up duty for everyone else, especially when simply telling those people what you want up front is likely to get the first iteration to the 90% correct point. (They don't know they did it "wrong" if you never tell them, and they will continue to do it "wrong", creating a never ending supply of things that need to be reworked.)

As I learned way back when with the dish washer... my ex wanted it loaded a certain way. Great, do that... YOU... do that, because it is your insanity. Sure, I might adopt this strategy when I see the logic behind it (putting all of the forks in one section in the silverware holder and the spoons in another, etc to make it faster to unload and put away), but if I don't see the value in it you can bet if I am loading the dishwasher I'll do it in my preferred manner. At this point your options are to: shut up or load the thing yourself.

See how that works?

My mother was very particular about many things to the point that I didn't have to do much of anything in the way of chores because if she tried to make me do something and I didn't do it her way she would basically push me out of it and it never came back to me again.

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