Know Your Audience

Someone mentioned online that a person was out because they were out on spring break with their family.  I suspect my landlord is on vacation this week as well.  Ok, here's the bad thought that I had and shared with my mom. I told her I hope he gets the shits on his vacation.  I don't wish harm.  Nothing wrong with hanging out in the bathroom, but I hope for a gastrointestinal disorder to tie him up in one room.  It's a curable thing.  I do kind of wish for the toilet to be a little faulty too.  Am I going too far?  Yeah.  Frick used to wish for people to die in an airplane crash. I just wish for diarrhea.  Or erectile dysfunction.

When I started working with Barry years ago, he would check his email on vacation and respond.  I knew he was going on a Disney cruise with his girls and I said why are you checking email?  Enjoy your family for crying out loud.  So I started sending him some obnoxious emails to prevent him from looking at his emails.  Luckily the phone service was lousy on the ship.  He did enjoy the creative emails I sent.

This is where Barry went wrong when it came to vacation time.  He would send pictures and send smart ass emails about what a great time he was having.  Funny once.  After awhile, I would respond where he could put the sand on the beach.  He would send it to a group of us and call us suckers.  I think the last time he sent a vacation pic, he just sent a picture of his feet and I called him a Hobbit.  I got called bitter and jealous.  My response?  Yes, I'm bitter and jealous because I don't have hobbit feet.  You got me!  I didn't mind Barry's vacations.  Glad he got away.  Sending us pictures and being a jerk about it?  Yeah, I'm going to throw out the insults.  

Lois was the one that made me lose my ever loving mind about people and their vacations.  Lois had to tell me how fantastic her kids.  She had to tell me how smart they were.  She had to tell me about her stress.  I couldn't have been happier when she went on her first vacation.  I was not happy she kept calling me and yelling at me.  Then she would send me pictures of her vacation.  I blocked her number after she sent me a picture of the plane and told me to call her if I needed anything. I needed to go the F away and I blocked her number.

She didn't realize it until much later.  She laughed at how she stressed me out on her vacation.  She treated me like a joke.  Then she got the joke the next time she tried to call me.  Every time she went on vacation and it was at least 3 times a year, she would whine to me about her kids and how they were unhappy about where they were going.  Of course she bragged about living in Shorewood.  My condolences to all that lived in her neighborhood.  Every time she went on vacation, she would dump a ton on me and expected me to remember.  She expected me to water her stupid plants and I would have and I forgot.  Don't care.  I'm not her maid.

I don't understand why people don't understand their audience when they talk about their lives.  Good for you if you can go on vacation three times a year, but don't dump on someone that has a nice house or lives in a great neighborhood.  The world doesn't revolve around you people and your quest for keeping up with the Joneses. Some of us are just surviving.  Some of us are ok with our lives and you make us feel bad with our lives when you keep talking about this elite stuff that seems kind of stupid to the rest of us.

I worked with someone who was generous with gifts but treated me horribly.  When someone pointed out the horrible treatment I got and I got questioned about it, I got my gift cards cut in half.  Fine by me.  This person had me check their emails while they were gone and would get me something nice, which I appreciate it.  They found ways to humiliate me when I made a mistake and I'd rather have someone treat me nice than a gift card.  They would tell me about their stress.  Lucky me I got a fat girl Hawaiian shirt from one of their trips.  Sigh.

Know your audience.  I'm glad to hear that someone went on a trip but when you go on about your stress and treat others terribly like Lois did, I'm secretly wishing you get the shits on your Alaskan cruise.  Yeah, that's harsh.  I wished for it.  She treated me like a low level maid and then talk about her stress.  What do you expect when she shows up pneumonia the day before I had my surgery to give me a candle while I'm on medical leave. Sigh.  Still got the candle.

It's ok to talk about your vacation.  Be kind to the co-workers that can't do those things or the friends that don't have the money.  They may be secretly hoping you don't leave the bathroom the next time you travel.