All Wrong: Punctuality, Listening, And Gazing

As I’ve said before, very rarely do I do these daily recaps or even recaps in general, yet here I am again doing that very thing.  Maybe I’m just trying to process it all, some 24 hours later, because even as I sit here writing this, things don’t make sense.  Then again, life seldom makes sense and that, in and of itself, can be quite frustrating.

Serena and I had an early morning visit to complete yesterday, at the request of one of our co-workers.  We were supposed to get to that appointment at 7am, though as seems to consistently be the case, we weren’t close to getting there at the designated time.  Rather than get there at 7am, we got there at 7:16am.  Now, I have always been the type of person to want to get to places, especially scheduled appointments for work, on time.  When it comes to work, I strongly adhere to this concept.  I have this mentality, which I think is quite simple.  When it comes to being timely and punctual, you are either on time or late.  There’s no gray here.  Arriving somewhere early means that you will be where you are supposed to be on time and ready for business.

Serena doesn’t seem to subscribe to this idea and more often than not, we are never timely.  Because our days can be pretty hectic with everyone that we need to see on any given day, I like to leave the office as early as possible.  This is usually closer to 8am, if we can manage it.  Often, because I have to wait for Serena most days, we don’t leave the office until closer to 9am.  This means that we customarily lose at least an hour every morning because she can’t be troubled to get to the office in a timely manner.  This continues to be a struggle for me because of how rigid I tend to be with regards to time and schedules.  Serena, on the other hand, just can’t be bothered with arriving on time so that we can get our day started.  This irritates the hell out of me.

As far as that early morning visit, the one that we were late to, I guess it didn’t really matter because the people with whom we were supposed to be meeting were not there.  I can’t even say that getting there on time would have changed that outcome, but that’s not the point.  I just find it frustrating that not everyone values punctuality like I do.  Serena knows how I am, and yet, it doesn’t matter.

And if I’m venting, let me go into this little tirade.  Being that she habitually gets to the office late, by my standards, even when she arrives, we can’t leave the office right away because she needs to make her social rounds.  This takes up even more time and further delays our leaving the office to get our day started.  This is so damn frustrating.

So as we’re driving to that 7am appointment, I let Serena talk, as she had a lot to say that morning.  I know that women like to talk, vent, and verbalize their feelings, whether this is in the form of telling a story or being direct about the exact way they are feeling, and as I drove, I allowed her to express herself.  I make it a point not to interrupt or interject in any way, as I afforded her the opportunity to talk.  I don’t know where I went wrong here, but she proceeded to get upset with me because I remained quiet as she spoke.  I told her that I was being quiet so that she could talk, emphasizing that I was listening to her the entire time.  Apparently, none of that mattered because in the end, she still got mad at me and assumed that I was somehow upset by something she said.  Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

She wanted to run through a Starbucks drive-thru and I accommodated her because I know that she enjoys her morning coffee.  I don’t drink coffee like that, but I know that she does.  As we were waiting in the long line at that drive-thru, I noticed that Serena was looking at stuff on her cell phone.  Again, I acknowledged that she was actively engaged in something on her cell phone and I left her alone.  Before we get to the speaker to order her coffee, Serena gets mad at me again because she noticed that I wasn’t looking in her direction or giving her any eye contact.  Puzzled again, I asked her why I would try to look at her if I knew that her eyes were fixated on her phone.  To me, that would be a wasted glance.  She looked to be especially enthralled with whatever she was looking at on her phone and again, I didn’t want to interfere with that.  It did not matter, because Serena got mad at me again.  Serena know very well that I look at her all the time, but apparently, I’m supposed to try to gaze into her eyes as those eyes are fixated on her cell phone.  Again, I just can’t win.

Once we returned to the office, things were pretty much awkward for much of the day.

So, let’s turn the tables a bit for some contrast.  At about 10 or 10:30am, Serena had another visit that we needed to take care of and she had asked me if I could go with her to complete it.  I told her that I could be ready in a matter of minutes, being that I needed time to get my portfolio from my desk and at least a pen.  Rest assured, that I was ready to go in less than five minutes, essentially the time it took me to walk back to my desk, grab my stuff, and walk back to her.  This isn’t necessarily a matter of punctuality, as much as I see it as being respectful of someone else’s time and their need to handle business in a timely fashion.  We left within minutes of her asking me.  I was on time.  I was ready to go when she was.  She didn’t have to wait unnecessarily.

I’m not tooting my own horn there, but clearly, there’s a difference with how we treat each other’s time.

I don’t know where I was going with this.  I think I just wanted to vent in this forum because venting to Serena yesterday was not helpful and only seemed to make things worse.

I can’t help but feel like I’m the asshole here, but I don’t think I am.  I’m just frustrated and I just don’t see anything changing.

God forbid, I should be mindful of the clock.  I get in trouble for letting Serena talk.  I’m supposed to look at her even while she’s on her phone not paying any attention to me.  The minute she wants to head out into the community, I’m ready at damn near the drop of a hat.  I guess this is just how things are going to be.

As I said, I’m frustrated though I think I have every reason to be.