You call it “venting”. I call it “bitching and moaning”.  Whining.  Complaining.

Yesterday I said to someone, “Ugh. And I’m supposed to be not complaining.”  The person replied, “Yeah, how’s that working out for you?”

I don’t think she’s feeling the groove.

I called a company yesterday whose modus operandi seems to be to send their worst people first, so that by the time their mediocre people get to you, the sense of relief is palpable.  I actually asked the service manager whether that business model was part of their written policy.  I didn’t laugh when I said it.  Though admitting that the first team sent to my house had failed to correct the problem at hand, the woman seemed unconcerned about the four-hour delay until the arrival of the guy who got the job done.

We ended the call on a pleasant note, and I remained calm throughout the conversation.  I tried not to make the exchange about “complaint”.  I strained to focus on “problem-solving”.  I practically channeled the late Marshall Rosenberg.  But I would be willing to bet that all she heard was “bitching and moaning” despite my best efforts.

Perhaps the answer lies in acceptance of human failing and seeing the good in every effort.  But does that get the drain unclogged?  Or compensate for the downtime?  I used the hours as well as I could considering that the Mutt and Jeff comedy hour played out in my kitchen, with a tall guy and a short guy who stood texting the whole time that his cohort sat on my kitchen floor staring into the cabinet.  They had not brought any tools into the house, so I don’t really know what he thought might happen in the 30 minutes that he stared and we conversed.

Him:  I don’t see a leak.

Me:  Do you see the puddle of water?

Him:  Yes.

Me:  That came from the leak.  Maybe you should run the water?

Him:  I could do that.

Me:  Would you like me to do it?

Him:  Were you by any chance using the dishwasher when the leak started?

Me:  [for the fifth time] No.  The sink and the faucet.  Just running water.

Him:  Maybe I should try that and see what happens.

Me: [Crickets while I tried to remember the Buddhist chant for keeping calm.]

This is a verbatim account of one tiny snippet of a twenty-minute conversation.  At the end of it, they called in reinforcements and left.

I remain convinced that people behave as described because they can.  These guys won’t get any instruction from their company.  If the outfit cared, those men would not act that way in the first place.  We tolerate this kind of behavior and so it persists.  Not in everyone of course; the cavalry did, after all, arrive.  But only after the supposed A-Team exited to go to lunch, logging themselves out, as I later learned, a full hour after they actually left my house.

On the flip side,  I understand that yelling at someone never accomplishes anything other than entrenching them in the position that they’ve taken which offends you.  I don’t like to have someone yell at me.  My least favorite admonishment is, “Damn it, talk to me!”  I’d cut out my tongue sooner than do so once that order has been barked.

So:  And no, Jane, I’m not just writing about what I’m not going to complain about.  (Pardon the dangling ‘about’.)  I’m ruminating on the question asked, “How’s that working for you?”

Not so well, as it happens.

The only way I can keep this task on track is to catalog my own sins, the many ways I’ve failed others, or failed myself.  I bring each incident to the foreground and recall those who forgave me or tolerated my incompetence.  I feel the love and acceptance from those who did not abandon me despite my inability in that moment to do or be what they wanted.  Those loyal souls model what I strive to attain:  Non-judgment, acceptance, empathy.  I’ve been the humble recipient of tolerance and compassion.  My quest remains the attainment of that state with respect to every human whom I encounter.

That I still fall short of a challenging yet attainable goal drives me to continue this chronicle of my #journeytojoy.

It’s the fifth day of the forty-sixth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.