A Word of Advice

I am tired, so tired, of people who decide the squeaky wheel gets the oil! All the squeaky wheel really gets is contempt for being such a whiner!

I'm so tired of people who think if they call every day, or if they have someone in "authority" call, or if they call someone in authority, money will magically appear. As though I am purposely making their lives difficult by purposely withholding assistance from them just for fun.

There is the son of the client who is waiting for bids from contractors. His son works for some government agency so the client has the son call me every freaking day to get an update on the project status. It is the same. No bid response yet. If I mail something out on Monday, I'm not going to have an answer by Wed., or Thurs., or probably even Friday. Even if you call constantly. It doesn't make it magically happen.

There is the lady who cc's every single e-mail to and from me to someone at a government office so that if there is the slightest delay she can call me and ask what's going on. My answer to her is inevitably the same as it is to the customer. Do they think I'll provide a different answer? Do they think that I'll say 'oh, well I was just playing with her, but here's the money.'

Especially people in government. Shouldn't they have a clue about beauracratic red tape? Shouldn't they especially have a clue about being understaffed and under hours?

If the guy that comes in the door is losing his house next week, that takes precedence over the people with the leaky roof - who have had a leaky roof for two years and never once did a thing to try to repair it themselves. If a certain authority entity sends a threatening letter that a missing document is going to cause sanctions against one of our investments, that takes priority over everything.

Sorry - but I cannot devote 8 hours a day per project or person until that persons problem is solved and then move onto the next. No, I have to juggle the 15-20 projects that are ongoing along with every other incidental call or walk in looking for help. It's an uncontrollable schedule. It's fraught with outside influences from applicants, people providing verifications, contractors, government entities, programmatic regulations, and life.

Heck! I'm having a baby for pete's sake. I have a morning of exams and tests just about every freaking week. I also have kids and sometimes they get in the way of work. But damned if I'm going to place every other person above my family when I have to be out for them to have pneumonia, or an asthma attack/breathing treatments, or strep throat.

Do you know that I have not taken one actual group of days off for vacation all year. Every vacation day I have taken, or half a day I have taken, has been related to a child care need, an illness, my pregnancy, or some other personal emergency issue. I'm not lounging on the freaking beach ya know.

I'm just so f-ing fed up with it all right now I want to scream. So my advice is: people - just back the F off!!