I should have been taking notes

I wish I was taking notes, really I do. Every time something completely absurd happened I wanted to sit down and write about it immediately because I figured nobody was ever going to believe me anyway so I might as well but then I'd run out of time or energy or fall asleep or something like that and before I knew it here is Saturday morning (well, now it's nearly 2 PM on Saturday afternoon) and I'm having to rummage all the way back to Monday because that's when the good stuff started.

I ought to mention this week beat last week hands down, at least for me. Peer may be still suffering to some extent and we'll get to that but a good amount of my pressure, self imposed or otherwise has lifted.

Monday. The cleaning crew. They arrived. Oh yes they did. They came. They saw. They attempted to conquer and they were summarily defeated. Regardless, my house is still very clean under the fine layer of dog hair and dirt that accumulates weekly between kid and dogs but nevertheless the fine (who am I kidding; it wasn't fine, it was an encrustation) patina of crud is gone from most parts of the house.

I don't recall when I talked to the cleaning guy who dropped off the women and supervised to some extent but I do know he had to bring in an extra two women (and he calls them girls and this does bother me) half way through the afternoon so that the total was six toward the end of the day because he'd underestimated the job. I do know he suffered some deep confusion about the artwork in the house. There are still some original pieces I happen to care very much about; one or two that have reasonable value associated with them (reasonable being probably worth insuring but I have not) but the two with significant value left the house three years ago. The rest, while quite good hold only personal value because the artists are largely unknown. Anyway, they are largish and I would imagine quite obvious.

And then there is the reproduction of Fredrick Leighton's Flaming June (the original currently resides in the Ponce museum in Puerto Rico) complete with large gilt gold frame hanging over the front door in the extra tall (yes, that's what I call it) foyer. It came with the house and I love it (both the painting AND the extra tall foyer!). Don't judge. It's a fairly good reproduction but reproduction it is all the same. In any event this poor man about lost his mind over the painting and instilled the fear of God into the cleaning crew. It is entirely possible their entire day was spent in fear of Flaming June presiding over their almost every move (insofar as Flaming June can see up the stairs and into the living room, dining room and half the kitchen and down the stairs and partially into the lower level). Perhaps Flaming June is all seeing and all knowing. Who knows. In any event, mistakes were made, things happened and I don't think this guy was prepared for the results.

That's ok. I was.

What I wasn't prepared for was just how far they thought they needed to go to call a house clean. The front porch? Really? Those column things that hold up the little roof like thing over my front porch were scrubbed as were the front window like things that frame my front door. My front door sparkles inside and out. Erm. Jeeze. OK, maybe that's just a presentation sort of thing but I'd consider it going overboard and I surely wouldn't ever care to pay for it. It's outside for heavens sake! This is an illustration of what went on inside the house.

My first clue that something was horribly amiss was the text message from Elizabeth announcing that while the house was very clean the furniture had been rearranged to some extent and that the entire phone system in the house seemed to have malfunctioned. Also, none of the lamps worked. I called the iTouch (she found the phone app) and suggested she check to see if they were plugged in. Nope. OK, plug them in. Some need extension cords. All extension cords missing. OK, do what you can and I'll be home by 8 (it was Monday, this did NOT go on all week).

In a nutshell, I'm pretty sure they panicked. I think it might have been the fear of God and Flaming June that set them off. Maybe that and the dog fur and walls coated in Simon Slobber. The stuff does come off and it doesn't take all that much effort and we do it a lot more frequently than you'd think. I guess it's just hard to imagine if you've never been exposed to it. I think they freaked out and moved all the furniture out of the living room and into the dining room and scrubbed. I think they moved all the furniture the other way and did the same. I think they had a hard time figuring out how to put it all back. Then they started putting things away in closets. Bad move. The things left out were left out for a reason. Things like a ballet bag staged for Tuesday. I found that by accident. All spare power cords, extension cords, router cords, phone system parts that didn't make sense and cables (printers, monitors, one of the hubs) bundled up and shoved into the back of the kitchen pantry and other spaces.

I got home and started looking but not until I walked around and admired my beautiful grout lines and sparkling kitchen (the kitchen was seriously in need of some help and boy did they help it). The cement grout between the tiles in the girls' bathroom looked like it had been painted. It had not. We'd just forgotten it wasn't colored burnt sienna. Cement grout is hard to upkeep but rather beautiful when it's clean. Probably wasn't sealed properly and I ought to do something about that while it's clean. I admired the missing gunk on the blades of the ceiling fan in my bedroom. I missed the cobwebs but they'll be back and really, did I need so many? Under my bed I found the main base of the phone system and plugged it back in. Wallah! Working phones again. I opened my closet door and a pile of shoes and power cords tumbled out. OK good.

I entered my bathroom and said. Oh oh. They missed. Somebody ran out of steam and I'm probably going to have to tell him and not only that I'm going to have to tell him he's not allowed to come back and fix it.

And then I noticed there was an entire shelf missing. I have a small bathroom. A really small bathroom. One of those 4 x 4 spaces where the only way to make it workable is to install a corner shower that is all glass floor to ceiling. Otherwise you might think you're going to die. It's a half bath size made into a full bath. I love it a lot. The corner shelf is something you'd notice. It was just gone. The things that used to live on it were under the sink on the floor. I looked all over for the shelf but it was nowhere to be found. I decided it would turn up eventually, probably in a kitchen drawer or downstairs or something like that maybe in six months or next year.

Still. I'm OK with this other than I know I have to tell him and I'm trying to figure out how to tell him without having him come completely unhinged. And I know why he's going to come unhinged too. He's going to come unhinged because he's called Baby Brother and given him the bad news in advance. 4 man (woman) hours times 8 to scrub the place. I don't know if he'll charge him for the mistake of needing to send in the 2 extras for the afternoon. That's A LOT of money. I'm guessing between $20 and $25 per hour in these parts and maybe even more. I still have to tell him.

At about 8:40 I give up and decide I'll find the rest of the cables later; never mind the fact that the computer is still useless. I'm tired, I haven't spent any time at all with Elizabeth other than running around desperately searching for pieces parts and trying to put the furniture back in at least the right rooms. At 8:50 I've cooled off a bit and notice it's a little chilly in the house. I wander off down the hall to check the temp. It reads 62. That's funny. The temp shouldn't drop that low until after 10 when we've all gone to bed and then it drops to 60 until 6 AM. I manually turn it up but see it's still set at 64 which is the step down process toward the 10 PM low. I turn it up to 70 to see what happens.

Nothing.

I go downstairs to the furnace room. The furnace is doing nothing. I hit the reset button. Nothing. I go out to the main lower room and turn that thermostat up to see if anything happens. Nothing. I check the fuse box and notice some of the fuses are thrown. Oh my. I throw them back although none of them have anything to do with the furnace but I try again anyway. Nothing. I know I have oil, just got a delivery. I run upstairs and run the water. I get luke-warm that runs to cold pretty quick. The heat has been out for a couple of hours. Probably since they left around five. This is NOT good.

I decide to throw the on off switch on the side of the boiler just because. Nothing.

Mother of God. Now what. How the... Of all the... No... Really? Not possible. Purely coincidental. Now I'm going to have to call the oil company and I have no idea what this is going to cost or not cost because I'm still not sure what's really covered in my maintenance contract.

I make the call.

The nice young man arrives in 40 minutes (not bad, actually).

He and I spend about 30 minutes in the furnace room. He takes some things apart, looks at the work that was done in September and the cleaning in November and finds absolutely nothing wrong. We are flummoxed. I go upstairs to check the girls and the current temp. Suddenly I hear the furnace kick on and go running back downstairs.

I meet him on the stairs halfway up.

Really. You're not going to believe this.

There's a kill switch in the bedroom on the lower level. It's a light switch just inside the door. It is missing a plate and is about a foot above normal height. At normal height is a regular light switch that turns the overhead light on and off.

Six years ago I knew what this was. And then I promptly forgot about it. It hasn't been touched since. No one ever seems to touch it. Actually, no one ever seems to see it. We see the switch with the plate at switch level and reach for it instinctively. The light comes on and off. At any point in time, let's say if the overhead light was out, we might have used the other switch and shut the furnace off. It just never happened, not even with two nannies living in that room. We were lucky. Or smart. Or someone else living in the house remembered. Or something.

The bottom line is I forgot. And then I had a cleaning crew come in and unplug and turn off everything in the house. Literally. Everything. All wall switches were in the off position. Not only were they in the off position but any lamps or fans associated with the wall switches were first put into the off position so that when the switches were thrown nothing happened. Then you have a who's on first scenario starring me until I get it worked out.

I still don't know if I'm going to get charged for the service call (he doesn't either but he's doctored the call ticket just enough so if there's a stupidity claus I won't get called on it. this time) but this is absolutely on me. I still had to tell him about it. Mostly in light of, for God's sake man, please tell your people to stop already with the plugs and the lights. If a switch turns something off then turn it off, if not DON'T TOUCH THE MOTHER FUCKER BECAUSE NEXT TIME YOU'RE GOING TO TURN OFF THE BROODER LIGHT IN THE GARAGE AND MY BABY CHICKS ARE GOING TO DIE!

Not that I have any baby chicks yet or anybody else has any baby chicks but you see my point. I have had exactly two conversations with him. They were extraordinarily painful. At one point I told him they were extraordinarily painful and I told him exactly why and asked him to stop. He asked for feedback and I gave it to him. First and foremost, your crew did a really fabulous job on my house, more than I would ever have expected or asked for. Seriously. Second, you asked for feedback so I'm going to give it to you. Don't unplug things without plugging them back in. They disconnected the entire phone system making it impossible to reach my latch key daughter by phone thus relying on her iTouch which is unreliable. Don't do that again. That's bad. Don't put things away. That's an absolute no-no in the cleaning world. This I DO know. Don't disconnect computer systems, you can disconnect things that might be running in the background and do irreparable damage. If you're worried about a painting I'd be more worried about electronics these days.

And then the furnace. I said that was on me but that he needed to know it happened and that the random outing of lights was a very bad idea. Outside lights that come on automatically had been switched off as well.

The pain? The pain was listening to his pain. I think it's a built in defense mechanism but it brings me to the situation at work...

My Peer is in pain. Perpetual Pain and Panic. I have finally been allowed out of his cube because on Monday morning I picked up a task of my own and just started doing it which got the attention of my boss pretty damn quick. He rushed over and watched while I read the instructions and built and then rolled the cube. The rest of the week, little by little I took over bits and pieces of the job and was left pretty much to my own devices. Instead of testing me, my boss started telling me I was gaining points. At one point my filter slipped. I smiled and said

Me: You know, it's a funny thing, awhile back, external approval stopped meaning all that much, it really doesn't do anything for me but you know what does do it for me?

Him:    ?????  You're going to have to explain that to me but OK, I'll bite, what does it for you?

Me:    A challange that I pick up on my own. Sort of like what you've let me do all week. I find something I want to do because I feel like it needs to be done and I can do it without getting into a great deal of trouble and you let me and in the mean time you get to see what I can do so you don't ask me to do anything that will get us both in trouble and I can also ask you for help when I need it.

Him:    OK. I guess that's what we've been doing this week but I still want to know what you mean about external approval. Who doesn't like approval?

Me:    That's kind of a long story and we can talk about it but I feel really great when I make something cool happen and I did that for me.

(and it's WAY too early to start talking about the difference between real and not real although they've both already been prepped for the chicken and garden conversation and the difference between what is food and what is not food and what we are told to eat versus what maybe we ought to be eating... yadda yadda yadda)

Him:    I think I get that.

I kind of wonder about that conversation. I'm not going to think very hard about it because I don't really have time but I watch him when he's neck deep in something and nobody is giving him external approval or disapproval and I think at some root level he does get it. Doesn't mean he knows how to interact any differently but you know what?

I've never said that before. Not to me, him or anybody.

And the other thing?

External approval is starting to make me nervous. Chew on that.

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post script - I have not touched on what must have been going through the minds of the women who scrubbed, mopped, dusted, cleaned, put away, turned out and no doubt panicked to the point of causing a bit of chaos in my house, none of which can be even comparable to the chaos that was probably occurring for them. I have not touched on this for a good many reasons. First and foremost, I'm not sure I'd ever be able to stop myself. What I think isn't pretty. I can suggest the book Nickled and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich but that's only a start. The bathroom shelf? I wish I'd never mentioned it because I bet somebody slipped and broke it and was too afraid to say anything. I wish I'd never said anything at all because to me the fact of the missing self was slapstick in the end but was most assuredly not slapstick to anyone else and when I asked I think I just wanted to know where it was. Now see? I've almost started...

Because I actually can imagine.

Comments

[shadowmoss]

I took everything out of my bedroom, swept up the year+'s worth of gecko, ummm, by-products around the edges, which wasn't as much as it could have been and I still really like that I have geckos here. I still have everything piled in my living room, but by Monday everything should be clean and straight. And hopefully the bad smell will have gone away...

One of my co-workers was like watching a train wreck. I had tried to tell him that he needed to get back to the States and away from here. He and his work partner were fired yesterday for failing the piss test. It will be chaos for awhile at work. Can't imagine what this will do for his already messed up life. And, he's not a 20-something either. Sometimes its just too ef'd up to care or even think about getting involved.

[Alecto]

I love geckos.

Sometimes when people are in mid spiral the only thing you can do is back up and watch. Or not. You can care and back up at the same time. Or not. Depends on the circumstances. Lots of people failing those tests though and more so in their forties and fifties than I would have imagined when I was in high school and wondering just exactly when that switch was going to flip and suddenly I wouldn't be doing this anymore (it did and not because I decided it was bad).

And with regard to train wrecks, been there, done that and thankfully still here to walk the fine line now and then. :-)

You are too. Good to keep company with the geckos.

[Alecto]

On hotel rooms and living in them. We need a lot less space than we think we do but this is a story about a hotel room. When I still lived in the castle I had a trainer who spoke Mandarin Chinese fluently and when the opportunity came to send a trainer overseas she jumped and I sent. Her husband was a sommelier and on her first assignment he managed to get himself employed fairly quickly but I never gave much thought to their housing situation and she never said a word about it. Within the first couple of months her transfer was complete and she no longer reported to me or into the Americas. I saw her again at a worldwide conference and over drinks she was telling stories about her living arrangement and boy could she tell a good story. They were living in a hotel room, she and her husband, as if it was the most natural thing in the world and as she told the story it became the most natural thing in the world; the best part being how she took her conference calls in the bathtub (dry) because she needed to be on speaker phone and her husband was sleeping, what with the time difference and all that... the hotel room was home and office. We land where we land and our circumstances are what they are and I guess we make up what we do about them. Her best stories though were about avoiding the hotel cleaning service because given their time schedules one of them was almost always home or asleep or in some form of undress or another. Nobody wants a daily home invasion once a space has become a home (OK, *some* people actually do but that’s another thing entirely). Later they had three boys, one right after the other and were forced out of the single room space and have since lived all over the Asia Pacific part of the world with the same sort of astonishing (at least to me) adaptability. I think about her when I find myself needing to get a grip.