How is it that even after a decent day at work, where, all things considered, things went well, one can still walk away feeling shitty? How all the little good moments don't add up to overwhelm the few big bad ones? I suppose when you end the day on a bad note, that just makes the whole thing seem, in retrospect, like shite.
Two incidents in particular stand out in my mind. About an hour before closing, a student came in to cancel his contract. The reason? He'd just come in from the Cross Cancer institute where he'd learned he'd been diagnosed with cancer and was to begin chemo on Monday. Fucking depressing, that.
After I'd closed the door for the night, we got a knock on the door. We didn't answer it, and the knock became more insistent. Finally, one of the other girls opened the door to find a woman there, asking for some documentation. We didn't have to documentation in question - and she was upset that nothing seemed to be done in her daughter's room to deal with the situation. Nothing we told her could convince her that all the proper measures had been taken. Keep in mind this was AFTER we closed. She complained she had driven 5 hours down from up north to come see us. Think she maybe could have left a little earlier? She KNEW full well what time we closed, and that it was Friday. She complained that no one had been around during the holidays. Well, DUH... it's the HOLIDAYS, for fuck's sake, and the entire university pretty much closes down. She started going on about the potential chemical hazards of the treatment we'd applied and about all sorts of remedies she'd found on the net... if she wants to apply some ludicrous home remedies, she's more than welcome to do so, but the uni's OHS people have done what they can to make the situation better.
Nothing like leaving the office on that note, eh?
And all this rules out all the pleasant people, the laughing with colleagues, the little things that make a day good... No matter how much I try to recall the good stuff, it's the bad that keeps coming to mind.
Two incidents in particular stand out in my mind. About an hour before closing, a student came in to cancel his contract. The reason? He'd just come in from the Cross Cancer institute where he'd learned he'd been diagnosed with cancer and was to begin chemo on Monday. Fucking depressing, that.
After I'd closed the door for the night, we got a knock on the door. We didn't answer it, and the knock became more insistent. Finally, one of the other girls opened the door to find a woman there, asking for some documentation. We didn't have to documentation in question - and she was upset that nothing seemed to be done in her daughter's room to deal with the situation. Nothing we told her could convince her that all the proper measures had been taken. Keep in mind this was AFTER we closed. She complained she had driven 5 hours down from up north to come see us. Think she maybe could have left a little earlier? She KNEW full well what time we closed, and that it was Friday. She complained that no one had been around during the holidays. Well, DUH... it's the HOLIDAYS, for fuck's sake, and the entire university pretty much closes down. She started going on about the potential chemical hazards of the treatment we'd applied and about all sorts of remedies she'd found on the net... if she wants to apply some ludicrous home remedies, she's more than welcome to do so, but the uni's OHS people have done what they can to make the situation better.
Nothing like leaving the office on that note, eh?
And all this rules out all the pleasant people, the laughing with colleagues, the little things that make a day good... No matter how much I try to recall the good stuff, it's the bad that keeps coming to mind.
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Happy new year to you, Kate! I hope it'll be a great one for you! :)
As to lingering bad things -- absolutely and unfortunately, yes. Most people experience that, don't they? I've got several really sweet students in my current course, yet what comes to mind whenever I think of the class is that one snotty little brat who came to my office hours just before Christmas to tell me what a horrible teacher I am. (In the middle of the semester! Was that an intelligent move or what?) *roll eyes*
On a happier note: guess where I'm going in summer for a conference? Yup, to Newcastle! :) Curiously enough, getting there from Frankfurt is a wee bit difficult if I don't want to spend 4 hours at Heathrow or the night in Amsterdam.
Happy New Year!
I've had lots of days that have ended on a shitty note like that. Sometimes it's good to write down a list of all the good things and all the bad things that happened in a day and literally count them to see if overall it as a good or bad day. Otherwise you could try shouting at the parents in question - or do a Michael Douglas in "Falling Down" - a great film!
Kate,
It's like today at a meeting in St Catherines, that was fairly interesting and generally cool to be involved in, I will forever remember how I ran into a railing pole on the way in. Because I actually rickoshayed (sp??) off the railing and hit the opposite railing. It was just me and my fellow MRC/Ecoplans colleagues, but man, will I remember that moment in shame far beyond the details of the meeting. It's feelings that register higher on the emotional level? And maybe we remember them later because we can learn from them, or something? There's got to be some evolutionary reason. Or maybe I'm just a klutz and it's natural selection at work. Better read Darwin.
Amy