Posted by Racer on October 22, 1999, at 23:50:04
In reply to janey's a poet but she don't know it ..., posted by Bob on October 21, 1999, at 23:51:36
My mother always said that "children are cooperative"...
When the first boy I ever loved was killed a decade ago, after years of his mother saying he'd die young, my mother was furious with her. "Children are cooperative"
Bob, and Jane, and Racer, and probably most of us here, have heard from others that we're 'failures', 'losers', 'incompetant', 'unloveable' or whatever. Guess what? "Children are cooperative"
Now, what do we do about it?
We learn NOT to cooperate! We learn not to live down to others' expectations of us.
My beloved aunt is right: I can't keep a job, something always happens and it's always a personality thing. You know what, though? I find I'm freelancing rather well, and almost supporting myself at it... Well, not quite, but getting there...
And you know what else? When that personality thing happens? It's always been because I try to make someone else happy. When I say, "Hey, Buster, sit down, shut up, and listen to ME!!" these problems don't occur. I'm working to learn to do that more often.
Here's a work story for Bob:
I worked in a place with a bunch of good ol' boys salesmen. They all complained that I was bitchy, and not nice enough to them. My boss called me out on the carpet, with two of them in the room, to rip me up one side and down the other for being a lousy person, and 'be nicer to the sales guys'. I tried to be nicer to them. What happened?
I got called out on the carpet again. Why? "The sales guys are complaining that you keep coming on to them..."
Can you say "can't win situation"?
My judgement of the situation, by the way, was that the salesman who complained the most was threatened by me because I was smarter than he was, and taller than he was. He didn't like the fact that, after years of telling everyone that he was a computer genius, I walked in the door, said outright that I knew almost nothing about Macs, and proceeded to fix all his problems! And was more knowledgeable about PCs than the network administrator, most of whose job fell to me once I showed that I could fix all the troubles she got herself into. Of course, that's not fair, since I'm not only the accountant, but also a woman. And a woman who wore appropriate clothing (ie: suits with skirts and heels...).
Let's not even get into what happened once I started wearing pants to work on Fridays... Let's just say I'm not gay, no matter what anyone says, and, while I'm sure she's very nice, I don't want to meet your sister...
poster:Racer
thread:13470
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991016/msgs/13684.html