frustration – The Hermits' Rest

Finally Triumphed over FedEx

Of the services that deliver packages to our house, one used to be my favorite, FedEx. They always brought my stuff up the driveway and once the driver helped us when a member of the family fell and got overheated. The USPS woman is just fine, while UPS had a woman who wouldn’t bring anything to the house, so I had to go tote them (like horse feed—heavy).

Suddenly, starting a few months ago, FedEx decided that our driveway didn’t exist and started dumping packages at the next driveway that leads to the cow operation barn and my son’s cabin. It’s usually in long grass. I’ve been annoyed.

Oh look. I have moody brown nails, matching how I felt about my deliveries.

I thought I’d fixed it by getting online help from their Facebook page. I was wrong. I was probably talking to a bot. My packages continued to go to the wrong place. I despaired of ever getting the problem fixed since calling and website checking did not help.

Nope, none of this happened. I could not track the case. Grr.

But yay! On Thursday I had gotten the mail then was out working on the round pen when I saw it! The dang truck was dropping something off next door. I dropped the stuff in my hands and sprinted (translation: jogged briskly) to the road to catch the driver before the truck passed. My quads still hurt.

But I did it! I got the guy to stop. He started to “diffuse” me immediately. I wonder if he realized that pissed me off more. I was just trying to say my driveway is not where he dropped off packages. I felt justified in telling him how hard it was to tell FedEx their GPS software was wrong.

Indeed, it was. Whoever took over for the previous drivers (nice woman and man) had moved the pin on their Maps software to the wrong driveway, because like Apple Maps, it doesn’t acknowledge our driveway for some reason. Apple Maps is annoying that way, thinking there’s a driveway from the other driveway. That’s been gone for years.

The red line is our driveway, where the mailbox is. The yellow path is not a road.

The upshot of it all is that the guy moved the pin and added a note. I’m patiently awaiting the next delivery. But I think I finally triumphed. I hope.

I have as much hope as this out-of-season pink evening primrose.

What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do?

I don’t know what to do or say or think about the divided society I live in. I’ve been trying to hold it together and feeling isolated and more and more defeated. I had such bad nightmares last night that I knocked a glass of water over. What a mess. Things are a mess.

Hint about why I’m sad. I love children.

I know I’m not alone. I am grateful for a supportive network of friends. I’m grateful for people with different perspectives who are willing to talk to me. But there’s so little I can do to help make a safer society (where we don’t worry about all the things we’re concerned about from all sides). The Texas Legislature has no interest in my thoughts. I’m not a huge lobby.

I think all the people I know feel powerless, like someone else is making decisions. We just blame different factions. Everyone is frustrated. The world feels like a scary pile of poop. I can’t change that. Even venting among friends only goes so far.

I wish I could just be a bird, or a scarlet pimpernel.

So, I clean things. Poopy things. Thankfully, a vacuum cleaner for the RV arrived. I took out my frustrations on mouse turds. (And dirt; there were only a few turds.)

That helped. But I needed to clean more. So I shoveled all the horse poop out of the trailer. I hope that doesn’t make me sick. It did involve hay, after all.

I didn’t have to clean the shed. Someone had already weed-eated what the horses had missed. My tack room helps me feel better.

I wasn’t done cleaning. The tack room doesn’t have much of a mouse problem right now, but there are “fly specks” on my stuff. Or were. I cleaned all that, too. Then I got out my good old buddy the label maker!

I have some new horse supplements and will need feeding help soon, so new labels had to be made. I felt so organized and productive. And I’m control. At least I can control my dang horse stuff, and I even feel safe in my little room.

I actually do feel a little better just by making my little part of the world cleaner and happier. And I guess that’s the lesson I needed to remind myself of. I can do what I can do. I can clean things (no wonder I like grooming the horses).

These guys helped by picking up hoof trimmings.

And now I can think about ways to help others. I’ve send some funds to recent tornado victims. I can contribute to organizations I agree with, and I CAN contact elected officials and remind them they’re human and are supposed to serve humans, not institutions. I guess.

Life. Challenging. Frustrating.

Drew agrees. He had to learn hard lessons today. Look at him kicking up dust and swishing.

I hope whoever deals with me and my family and their challenges and frustrations will be firm but patient and kind, like Tarrin is with a confused and annoyed horse.

Love to you, readers.

Sometimes I Get Frustrated. I Suck at It.

ACK. Here I am again to share with the world that I am fine just the way I am, and all that, but could still manage to tweak a few things. I think we all have situations or feelings we don’t have to deal with or express often and just get rusty. Expressing frustration/disappointment in groups is one of those things. Ugh. I am getting more practice lately, but darn, I would probably prefer less practice. It makes my eye twitch, and with the way my eyelids are sagging, I don’t need even less eyeball real estate.

Generally, when I am frustrated with people, I go take one of my long and rather violent walks, where I physically get the majority of it out of my system, and I plan how to rationally and calmly talk about things. Sometimes, I am told, I am too calm and subtle, and so careful not to hurt people’s feelings, so people can’t tell I am actually trying to get them to do something. That’s one of those things I can’t quite get rid of from how I was brought up, and actually something I like, since I prefer to get feedback and direction in a helpful and calm way.

At least I get to smile when a cow suddenly appears above all my work screens.

It doesn’t help things that I know I come across pretty intense when I finally do try to say something firmly, and that it has cost me friends and upset colleagues. Still, I do get frustrated sometimes. I usually ask myself if telling people about it will do anything to improve the situation or change behavior. If it won’t, it’s back to the violent walks and not causing unnecessary strife.

In the past month or two I’ve received feedback that I need to “stand up for myself” more and let people know very clearly how they haven’t lived up to my expectations, when it’s important. I’ve also been letting some issues in the workplace get under my skin to where I’ve become irritable and I could see that the issues were affecting other colleagues. I really needed to say something and get things back on track, because I was pretty sure that bringing the issues up might actually have a positive effect in the long run, even if people got upset in the short term.

CAW, Says the Texas Fish Crow. Suna rocks! Photo by *@eric_urquhart via Twenty20*

Since I don’t do this stuff very often, I was not as eloquent as I could have been, and of course, one person thought I was directing it all at them, but at least I made it clear that some things really do need to change.

And I had a good talk with the person who was upset, and came out with some helpful steps to making things better for all. I’m going to give myself a hearty CAW CAW and put this in the Celebrate All Wins category.

All the Venting

I was totally knackered, as they say in places outside the US, after all my meetings and chats yesterday. I was not the only frustrated one, so I engaged in a lot of active listening, reflecting, and venting of my own. Luckily, the venting led to productive ideas, plans for dealing with the various situations, and best of all, some humor. Thank goodness we can all still laugh! I’m also grateful that the colleagues I work most closely with and trust the most have the same goals I do, which is to produce good stuff that helps our customers succeed. Dealing with people who are focused on making themselves look good or getting a promotion would be sooo draining, so I’m glad I engage in a minimum of that.

Even our cats and dogs, who kept visiting our Zoom meetings, laughed. Image by *@davidcharouz via Twenty20*

Thanks for listening, and thanks to my Master Naturalist and Friends of LLL buddies for bringing some fun into meetings, too!