Is There A Manager I Can Speak To?

I don't feel great. Physically I'm fine, even though there's a lot of not-fine going around again. But I'm annoyed. The about-what part is deeply, drastically unimportant, but right before I started typing this I spent a very small amount of time directing my annoyance toward a lady I don't know performing her customer service job very competently over the phone. In my defense, the actual service I'd received turned out to be an underwhelming, slow-rolling wet gunpowder barrel of low, smoking seethe that has eaten up parts of three days and is now going to roll into a fourth, prompting the phone call. Suffice it to say, it's 2021 and I demand the ability to operate my 1990s-built appliances and amenities at maximum resource-hogging anti-efficient ludicrous speed with zero interruptions or even the mildest inconvenience. I'm 90% sure that's in the Constitution. It's between the part about how when people disagree with you it violates your right to free speech and HIPAA.

The mood I'm in doesn't matter. Well, not exactly. It has value. I'm not cursed with the creeping black dog of emotional fears among all GenX of low self-esteem, so it matters to me. It's the same sort of healthy self-regard that kept me from becoming a stripper or getting teenage pregnant. I was paying attention in 7th grade Health class in 1987. So it does matter to me. It take myself at least that seriously. And it matters to my family, partially because they love me and people who love you are attuned to and responsive to your state. Also they're stuck dealing with me when I'm in full Pouty Stompy Little Baby-man mode. You need people around you who know when to give you a wide berth and when to redirect you toward the Fig Newtons, if only for their own sake.

But I'm also a big believer in Leaving People The Fuck Out, meaning people I don't know. Showing up with my bullshit to a situation that has nothing to do with them forces them to participate in a human emotional dynamic that is not only none of their business ultimately, but also (and most importantly) not their responsibility. I'm an enormous believer in keeping your own shit securely sealed up in your own emotional septic tank. The fact that I went to feces containment as a metaphor for my emotional life I'm certain isn't worth looking any further into. Just like an actual septic tank.

I'm obviously aware that taking care of your own business is definitely not the order of the day. But that's no excuse. The people who can't manage themselves just make more work for the rest of us who want to. Sometimes you force strangers in customer service into an awkward exchange. Sometimes you give someone else's grandma an airborne respiratory virus and she dies.