I have never really thought of myself as "High Maintenance". Not in my personal or professional lives. Really - I pretty much run on my own.
Work wise, just tell me what you want, give me the tools and I'll do what I need to do.
Personally? I buy myself flowers, and do what I can to take care of things. If I can't do it, I usually hire it out. Pretty cut and dried.
The only thing I'm a bit obsessive about is communication. It's kind of a hot spot with me.
With work, I need to know what's going on. If you send me an email asking that something be addressed I will ALWAYS send a follow-up letting you know the result. That's just being polite. Plus it's efficient. I have a task list. When something is completed I like to cross it off my list. I just figure other folks like the same thing.
In my personal life, it's the sort of the same thing. I don't want someone joined at my hip - that's just claustrophobic. But....it's nice to know folks are thinking of you. I try - don't always succeed, but I try - to drop notes here and there, and take a minute to call, just to say hi. Nothin' elaborate, just letting 'em know someone somewhere cares.
In other words, I try to treat others the way I want them to treat me. THAT in itself is communication. No one would ever know what I like or need if I didn't show them. And I certainly can't read minds, so this all just seems to make sense.
But I gotta tell you....these concepts just seem to be beyond so many folks. It's amazing to me.
It's making me think maybe I've been wrong all these years. Maybe I really am, gasp, High Maintenance. Yikes!
But it's my MO. My style as it were. I won't ASK for something, I'll dance around it. I'll show you. But the asking is just too hard.
But it made me wonder...what about y'all. What expectation do you have for those in your life? Both personally and on the work front. How do you communicate that? Are you alright just asking out right, or do you have a "secret code" you use?
This is something I actually spend a lot of time thinking about. My life seems to be built around having the ability to read people, and I think I'm missing the boat. I need a bit of guidance here.....can you help me out?
Posted by Tammi at November 16, 2007 06:19 AMI don't think I can be too much help, since I'm a work in progress myself. ;)
Sometimes I expect or assume people will know what I want or need without me telling them... like if you don't know me or love me enough, then... it's not right, it's downright ridiculous and I'm working on it, but still. None of us are perfect. ;)
And honest to pete, I see a lot of that Pam. And the place I see it most is in business! It seems my customers are constantly testing me. Forcing me to try and read their minds, or anticipate what they WANT - not need, want.
It's makin' me crazy. They have got me runnin' round in circles. My biggest fear is that I'm doin' that to people! Yikes!
Posted by: Tammi at November 16, 2007 07:39 AMYou are just now realizing your "might" be high maintenance?
We need to talk.:D
Posted by: Contagion at November 16, 2007 09:11 AMOUCH!!!
That's ok. I see how ya are. I'm readin' the writin' on the wall.....
Just you wait, Mr. Contagion Sir! I'll get mine. Oh yes I will....
;-)
Posted by: Tammi at November 16, 2007 09:19 AM
If you are comfortable with yourself and how you 'work' and 'play', you will find that you will attract people who understand how you are and will interact with you as you want them to.
If you are unsure of yourself, and you accept anyone - however they may be - into your life, you will get miscommunications and struggles.
I will provide tangible proof this to you - personally - in one week.
I think it depends on your self-esteem in a situation.
At work and all things work I am confident and don't pussy foot around and just ask or come out and tell them to spit it out.
In my personnel life it's a bit harder, my self-esteem is pretty low in that arena and sometimes have a hard time asking because growing up the less you were in the spot light the better. So I just did things myself and tried not to ask to much, but I am working on that.
Posted by: Quality Weenie at November 16, 2007 03:51 PMTammi, that communication thing you described makes you most assuredly high maintenance.
As for reading clients' minds, I personally think you should just tell them. "I am not a mind reader. I don't play games. If you want to play games, find a chess board and have at it. If you want to do business, give me a call and tell me what you want."
We had this client at my last job. I was actually doing his financial statements compilation and his corporate tax return (not a good idea, period), and my manager just told me to have at it. Of course, it took me far longer than it should have, because I don't freaking do taxes. Well, the client was building a new multi-million dollar building, and my boss knew this and didn't bother to tell me. And instead of putting the building costs into fixed assets, he was expensing every bit of the cost and hiding it in an account he knew we wouldn't really check for accuracy (because the account is immaterial in terms of total expenses). Of course, I didn't check that one account -- and when you're just compiling financial statements and doing a tax return, you are not reviewing anything -- you are doing just that -- compiling; you're not even supposed to check the accounts for accuracy anyway or do any kind of analysis, but my boss was having me do it just because, and she didn't tell me why.
Well. The day his tax return was due is the day my boss reviewed it, and she got mad, because she checked the account I hadn't checked, because she knew about the building and was hunting for the expenses and kept hunting until she found them. She wouldn't let me touch the return after that (thank you, I appreciate it, because I don't DO taxes, but she was acting like I'd screwed up). She redid the whole thing herself and after it was done, she was happy, because he'd overpaid on his estimated taxes, so he didn't owe anything. Well, whooptido, why is she not upset that he's deliberately hiding things from his accountants? If I were the boss, I wouldn't even mess with that, because it will only get you in trouble in the long run.
And THEN she told me he always does stuff like that to screw with her, and he always knows she'll find it, but he does it anyway to see what he can get past her.
That hacked ME off. The first words out of my mouth were, "Well, why don't you tell your client that this is not a game, it's business, and we don't have time for his crap." She was a little surprised but I went on to remind her that it was March Freaking Fifteenth and we have other things to do besides play his stupid game and that she shouldn't put up with it.
I was so hacked, because 1) he was trying to hide things from us, and 2) she knew he would and didn't give me the heads up, so I got to feel like an even bigger idiot than I already did, because I know absolutely nothing about taxes. 3) She still had the audacity to act like this was my fault when it's not something I would have found unless she'd told me to look for it!
I don't remember what my comment was about. I think communication.
Anyway, you're high maintenance. :D
Posted by: sarahk at November 17, 2007 08:00 AM