Having my bad behaviours modeled for me
Friday, August 16, 2019
I work with a married couple cleaning houses. They're really amazing and fun to work with most of the time but here lately the man has been getting on my nerves.
Supposedly he can hear just fine, according to his wife who said he's had his hearing tested, but I swear you can be looking right at him and he won't hear what you're saying. His wife will be speaking to him from the backseat of the car and he doesn't hear a peep. I'm constantly having to tell him what she just said because I get stressed out when she gets angry at him for not hearing her.
He's so impatient to get where he's going that he drives too fast and too recklessly. He even got a speeding the other day. He barrels through towns with 35mph limits going 50mph and I don't even think he notices. He rages over the fact that the speed limit is stupid and should be changed. Surely he should be allowed to drive whatever speed he's comfortable with because he's a safe driver. He also thinks he's the only one who can successfully do something on his phone while driving.
He seems oblivious to anything that's not right in front of his face and he's unable to multi-task. He can't work and talk at the same time. When we go into a house to clean, he'll spend 30 minutes talking to the homeowner while the wife and I get started. At the end, he'll be rushing around all flustered because he's behind. Then he gets irritated at us for not helping him finish his work even though we're still working on ours.
The other day he got upset that the back of the car wasn't organized to his satisfaction so he threw everything out onto our customer's lawn before putting it back complaining the whole time about how we didn't put it all back in there correctly.
So, I'm talking on the phone to my wife and I'm bitching about his behaviour. "He's so hard to be around sometimes! I get so anxious and upset when he behaves like that," I tell her. She just goes, "Hmm," and it dawns on me that these are the same behaviours she has said bother her about me. Time and time again she's asked me not to throw things when I'm upset. She's asked me not to drive like a crazy person when I get impatient. She's asked me to do what I said I'd do instead of fiddle farting around on inconsequential things.
Shit! I'm getting to experience first hand how maddening, upsetting, irritating, crazy-making these behaviours really are and I don't like it! It's giving me new insight into myself, though, to watch what triggers the various behaviours. Except for the "that law is stupid and I shouldn't have to follow it" thing. There's no trigger for that one, at least not for me. I used to genuinely think I should be given special dispensation to not obey certain laws or rules. How many times have I gotten in trouble for not following a rule I thought was stupid? I've lost jobs, gotten tickets, lost friends, etc, etc. That one I definitely need to work on.