I enjoy having pleasant experiences.
You’d think that’d be universal, but I swear to you, some people want to be miserable and they want to make you miserable with them.
We all make phone calls. We gotta call to RSVP, call to make an appointment, call to cancel, call to order, call to renegotiate, call to clarify, call for assistance.
Inevitably, we must deal with people who do not enjoy having pleasant experiences.
I truly don’t understand it. If I want information from someone, that means they already have it. They don’t need it; I need it. That means they already have the power in this situation. I’m asking them for information and I’m hopeful they’ll oblige. I’m vulnerable in my position of need. It is not in my best interest to grunt and yell and swear and huff at someone who has something I want.
It’s that whole flies and honey thing.
I will honey and gratitude you to smithereens. I’m positively delighted to talk to you and share a pleasant experience — you can feel my joy long distance.
It’s not just calls, it’s a way of conducting your life.
WE make the happy.
There are people who go about their business in the exact opposite way.
I’m not talking about when shit ain’t goin your way. I’m not talkin bout when you’ve been wronged and come hell or high water, it’s got to be put right!
No, no, I get that.
I’m talkin bout in daily life, why on earth would anyone want to have unpleasant experiences with total strangers?!?
We have every right to feel the way we feel, but we have no right to take it out on others.
I tell ya, if you can’t master the art of being pleasant and you can’t muster up enough self-discipline to keep quiet, it is not what the world has done to you, it’s what you’re doing to the world.
And don’t call me.
Stream of Consciousness Saturday — SoCS ‘call’ is brought to you by LindaGHill
joeyfullystated 
Shame on whoever stepped on your happy.
I try to be pleasant, at great cost sometimes, any time I possibly can be. For one, interactions are shorter that way (you think all that sweetness and light take up time? no, no, no – they grease the skids). That’s what people don’t understand: there is NO benefit to being difficult. It is going to come back and bite you.
That’s just the self-interest side.
On the life side, I know perfectly well how to be a royal b*tch. I have a big fat ‘Dr.’ title I trot out when absolutely necessary to cut through cr*p (and try to be ashamed of myself when I need it). But I’m a good Catholic girl, and that’s not what we’re supposed to be doing.
Petty abuse of power drives me nuts. But even then I think of my own aims and do what will work best. For heavens sake, we’re grownups.
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Right? Petty abuse of power is despicable! We all have to show our teeth now and again, but there’s just no reason to BEGIN that way! You don’t need a PhD to figure that one out — or, at least you shouldn’t 😛
No one stepped on my happy, but bless their hearts, they sure do try!
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They don’t know who they’ve taken on when they tread on you. Live and let live – until they bite.
Women engineers and physicists get a lot of garbage on the phone – there are so few of us that most people assume you’re the secretary when you call. It gets very tiring. And yet the guys just say, “This is Mike,” and get no attitude, whether they’re a physicist or the plumber.
Doctors’ offices – even of women doctors – are terrible for assumptions. I am tired of being treated like a nitwit by young women barely old enough to be employed.
I don’t know what has happened to the custom of not using someone’s first name unless you have been granted that privilege by the someone, but it is a great loss. I shudder at the thought of that when I get old – and the caretakers get familiar. I don’t take it well unless it follows acquaintance and genuine friendship, and PREFER to grant the privilege than to have it assumed.
As Miss Manners says, if they are too familiar from the beginning, where do you go from there? Frostily retorting, “It’s DR. to you,” isn’t optimal.
I do NOT understand why I had to call all my mother’s friends by their titles when I was growing up, and now I have to let random people address ME by my first name (usually mispronounced, which adds insult to injury).
Rant over. I’m old enough to be entitled to it.
I’m curious how this will be at the CCRC, where many of the inmates are Dr. So-and-so and were the head of their department at the University. Will report back.
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I witness more sexism than I experience it. Could give you umpteen examples in a week.
I am predisposed to calling people Mr and Mrs, or at the least, Miss First Name, when they are my elders. I think that’s all how people are raised. I tell ya though, if the last name is Bwickominafghy, I may well choose to say John or Jane over Mr and Mrs! I do have the pleasure of working in a field where propriety still matters. I hope your caretakers are respectful. Nothing wrong with insisting.
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I think I’ll make a practice of visiting the higher levels of care regularly, and initiating small changes over a longer period of time, if warranted. I thought you might have a Southern attitude toward graceful movement in relationships instead of assumptions.
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I do, cause my mother. Raise my kids the same.
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Ditto – my mother was immobile (the same way my grandmother was, and yes, I’m scared) for the last years of their lives, but they were visited. It may have been a bit perfunctory from the younger generations – it’s hard to do things from anything other than obligation when there is little response – but it happened regularly. Mexicans are brought up in a very rigorous pattern of politeness, and it sticks, sort of like the States 50 years ago. You just do it: say hello to every single person in the house when you visit. Children are taught from an extremely young age.
Now there is so much fear here of grabby and/or inappropriate relatives that kids are encouraged NOT to kiss Uncle Ed if he makes them feel uncomfortable. I dunno. They should at least say hello to Uncle Ed from a supervised distance?
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Yeah, LOL, I do think saying hello from a supervised distance is good.
I’m guessing you haven’t experienced creepy uncle. I don’t have one, mine are great men, but I am acutely aware of who’s got a creepy uncle. One tried to help my daughters out of the van once. I told him if he’d lay a hand on my children that’d be the last time he’d ever use it. That was that.
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I had two uncles who drank a bit too much, but no one in the family did anything about it, as they behaved in public. Periodically, one of my aunts would threaten divorce (a very hard thing for a good Catholic woman in Mexico to deal with), and he would buy her an expensive present and behave for a while (as far as she ever said. So mild (or rampant – they were functional, so I don’t know) alcoholism was just one of the crosses married women (usually) had to put up with. I was always glad that my mother had picked the good one of the three. But I didn’t think much about the rest, except that there were little things in retrospect that might have needed to be addressed, but they were my mother and her sisters’ problem.
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And yes, I have experienced ‘creepy uncle’ – I had about 8 uncles and I have told few people which he was. We were a lot less clued in about things like that (unless they happened to us) in the 60s and 70s, and after that I was on my own.
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“some people want to be miserable“
It’s so true and it’s so sad. But you’re absolutely right, don’t call me with your misery. I go through life mostly happy. I approach dork as optimistically as I can. I will share happy whenever it comes or when I can make it.
Nice job on this SoCS!
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Thanks!
It’s SO sad. I appreciate your support, and of course, your steadfast commitment to not being a jerk.
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I can be a jerk when I need to be. Just do you know.
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As needed, sure. We gotta. But I cannot imagine you barking belligerently at strangers without cause.
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Nope – never. Not without serious reason.
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I totally get you. It’s so saddening when people want to make a miserable experence out of every situation, especially because as they make us miserable, they also show off their own msiery. It’s a pity really.
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It truly is a pity! Thank you for your comment, I’m sorry I’ve just now caught you in my spam.
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Preach on Sister. So much Truth in so Few words. It doesn’t cost a dime to be pleasant. I am so over people who have a perpetual pantie bunch. Life is too short. I always try to be pleasant; especially to strangers. After all pleasant is my middle name.
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Thanks! Right? I’ve witnessed your niceness. Ain’t no reason to be stingy with kindness. There’s a thought: Maybe they only have so much pleasant in them and they feel their wasting it on strangers. Perpetual panty bunch! LOL
I’da thought your middle name was Mischief!
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Right on, Joey. People who want to be miserable are not gonna drag me down with them. No, sirree. Cheer up and then give me a call, people.
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You know it, Lois! 😀
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I don’t get it, either. I don’t run into many unpleasant people normally, but my husband’s family were awful about this. They weren’t happy with anything, ever, and could start an argument over nothing with anyone. Or they’d be whining, and complaining. Still is, and that’s why we live far, far away from them, and never visit. Just a phone call once in awhile, is enough for them to send gloom and doom across the miles. Ugh! No thanks!
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Oh my. That is such a shame. There are so many easy pleasures in this life 😦
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I feel like my future father in law is the same way. He completely exhausts me. He is always the victim, always has something to complain about, and always has to be right. He will sit there and argue until you admit that he is right and you are wrong, when it is clearly the opposite.
I just want to shake him like a rag doll!
But I stay quiet and try not to disrespect him. I try to be pleasant, but I am truly screaming inside and my eyes want to roll around like a bowling ball.
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I worked in customer service once and believe me – over the phone there are a lot of people who just want to yell about something. I would generally lay the phone down until they exhausted themselves and then I would ask how I could help them.
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I experience that ranting on occasion, and I agree, best to let them vent and then try to problem solve. A shame isn’t it?!?
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I’ve worked in customer service too, and until you have experience being the customer and the worker you don’t have any sympathy for the worker. That’s the ultimate problem with a lot of things in this world.
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WE make the happy. Ain’t it the truth? I don’t get those other people either. Have had way too many of them in my life, but I seem to overcome often enough to make them irritated, which I figure means my happy has trumped their complaining.
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Yesss. They can’t make me miserable. It galls me how they try, but I just don’t have it in me, Ally! I reckon if they’re that miserable, I should be a beacon of nicety! LOL Glad to have you on my team!
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I grew up with my Dad’s mother who was so completely negative, glass totally empty with a hole in the bottom kind of person. On the other side of the family my Mom’s father was completely the opposite. He started everyday grateful for the day and chose to be happy. He always said “I can be unhappy with whatever life gives me or choose to be happy. It’s so much easier to be happy.” I have always agreed with him. Don’t you agree? Sometimes it easier to let those negative Nellies blow off steam and choose to be happy anyway.
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I DO agree. I truly believe happiness is a choice. I think there are always times it’s impossible to feel happy, but I don’t try to bring everyone else down, and it’ll pass. I certainly don’t go out into the world seeking conflict and sucking the life out of people. It’s such a shame.
I bet your grandparents really influenced your own attitude with theirs.
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Yes they did. Grandma with how NOT to see the world. And my dear sweet Grandpa with his love of life and positive attitude sending me out each day with a smile and happiness.
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😀
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We had a chat about this same thing yesterday in a hippie shop in Woodstock NY when it poured torrentially and a dozen people of all kinds of races, ages, different appearances came into the shop. We all had fun, the kids bought tiedyed teeshirts, a lady older than me bought an outrageously tiedyed playsuit that made her look great, and everybody just had the nicest time looking out at the very heavy rain while it fell, talking about how fun it was to just have a good attitude and enjoy. And so we all did.
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I love that story! That’s a great one! Glad you had such a nice group and made the best of the unplanned. Encounters like that are GOLDEN! 😀
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I’m really glad that enough of the people who live near here are genuine old hippies, who tend to be more reasonable than some of the younger hihgspeed addcited-to-cellphones folks. Many of the tourists are older folks too, who seem to want to relive the old days, although there are tons of tourists of every age, race, language, you name it, and the vast majority of them are decent.
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Sounds lovely 🙂
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I don’t want to pretend it’s perfect, but there is a lot of good. It’s imperfect since a lot of folks got to be older and are in poor shape and have no money and all, but it doesn’t feel like nasty urban overcrowded. There is still a lot of nature and space–no real Orange Mulch Apocalypse here.
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Very nice, indeed. I live in an urban area, no orange mulch apocalypse for me either, but it, too, is imperfect, as all places are. Okay, no, some places are just wrong for me. 😛
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Yeah, we took care of a condo in a senior citizen community near the NJ Turnpike for a few years, and that was Not A Good Place For Me. We moved out of there over a year ago and I’m still sort of poisoned from it physically–yuck.
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Oh I’m sorry you experienced that. I am acutely familiar with living in the wrong places as well. It sorta stays with you a while, I’m not sure full recovery comes, but it does tend to make one grateful for its absence.
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Thanks. Yeah, it eventually fades away even if it was terrible, fortunately. I grew up in NJ, but there’s nothing really there anymore, just overcrowding and crime and pollution, so I just pretend it isn’t like that and never go there.
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So true. Love it.
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Thank you!
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And how much do want for this advice ?
Oh wait – it is free so people – read up and thank Joey later!
—
And did you hear about the Costco incident?
Two 70 year-old men had a scuffle at the free sample stands!
Someone cut off the other one and the second time led to a hat and glass coming off!
People people –
Really?
At that age we have not learned the art of yielding?
Or that a soft answer turns away wrath?
Or that Costco food sucks?
Ha
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OMG, no, I didn’t hear about that!!! That’s MADNESS! Wait, was it ice cream? Just kidding!
Thanks, Y 🙂 Glad you liked it!
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Hahah – no it was not ice cream/
Here is the scoop tho (get it – scoop – oh my it’s late) :
A cut in line for free samples at the local Costco turned into a fight – between two 70-year-old men.
A 70-year-old man said he was waiting in line for a complimentary piece of cheese at the Costco, when a 72-year-old man “cut in line, took some cheese and walked off,” according to a July 26 incident report.
The 70-year-old was still upset about being cut in front of, and according to the incident report, he told the other man that “he could get in front of him because he k…
See More
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:O
Well sure, it’s upsetting, but violence?! Over cheese? I love cheese, but …
The scoop, LOL!
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Well doesn’t it all start with the person who was cut off? How do we respond – I guess there is a time to speak up and not be a doormat (- as you have noted) but sometimes with rude people it really does help
To
Take the high road and yield and so the ego bump these two guys had – oh my / they should fast from all free samples and think about things more – lol
(And I hate Costco- in case I did not make that point earlier – whew )
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I went to Costco once with my MIL. Meh. Not my thing. Sometimes she goes there to get the cake with the pudding between the layers, and that’s nice. I prefer pudding to frosting.
I don’t think I would say a thing if someone cut in front of me for cheese. I think I’d exchanged eye rolls with those around me and wait for my cheese. I also don’t see myself waiting in line for cheese…
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Hahah – the eye roll is what I would Likely do – and that cake with the pudding is the bomb! They also had an enormous key lime pie for like 12$ – and not sure how it taste ld but it was light (not lime green cos key likes are not super green) anyhoo – Myers’s they have quality beef – guess the hubs will find out and I hope I never go there again
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And wishing you a great rest of
Your night!
😴 💤
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It is so draining to be around the negative Nellies (sorry Nellie)! I think it is so much easier to be pleasant and at the very least cordial to everyone. Not saying I have to be your best friend but a smile goes a long way and you CAN hear a smile over the phone during a call, no?
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Absolutely! Your smiles, especially 🙂
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it’s true. It’s as though they fear being happy. I looked it up: “People who have an irrational aversion to being happy suffer from something called “cherophobia.” It comes from the Greek word “chairo,” which means “I rejoice.” It basically means that they are afraid to participate in anything fun.” Wow.
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Ooh, what a fascinating new word! Terrible that we need one, but all the same…
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I do admire and try to share your sunny attitude, Joey. Yet I must also admit that I am a person who may turn sour a bit too quickly at what I deem to be a turn in our society to me-first, are-you-even-there behavior. I do not condone the violent response, of course. A simple, Ahem, the line starts the other way back there, sir, would suffice.
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LOL Yes, I agree with your me-first assessment. Your Ahem comment is a right good one. Still, I probably wouldn’t. Maybe cause he’d be my elder. Maybe if it were a young person.
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Oh I could not agree with you more, Joey! I have always known that you attract more flies with honey rather than vinegar. Yet some people deliberately and consciously choose to be miserable. I just had that experience yesterday and it just about ruined my day. I had to keep on telling myself no no no I will not allow this man to ruin my day! Here I was all excited about a phenomenal find I had with my camera and this man deliberately poured vinegar over my excitement. In stepping back I realized that man had no business being where he was, representing a company that is pro-animal, and from an empty heart comes misery. It took me awhile to get my calm back believe me. PHOOEY on miserable people! HUH! 😜
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PHOOEY on em! That’s why it’s awful, you’re doing the human experience and having the nice thoughts and feelings and hoping to engage someone pleasantly, and NOPE, they’re not havin it. Best to not let them dampen the mood! It’s my happy and they can’t have it! 😀
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Atta girl!! Don’t let the Miserables in this world steal your joy! 😙😙😙
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You neither!
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So true. Life is what you make it… and you know what? It’s too damned short to be miserable. No one will mistake me for Suzie Sunshine, but I try to enjoy every minute I can.
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Right on.
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Love the last paragraph and the way you ended this.
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Thank you!
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Thanks for sharing your happy with us. I seriously appreciate it.
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Thank you 🙂
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What Rivergirl1211 said!!!
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I honest to God don’t know what’s wrong with people sometimes. We love sharing your happy, Joey!
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😀
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Here, here! Don’t call Joey, or me either! I can’t be around people who just want to mad, and miserable all the the time. One of my siblings is that way, and I can’t.
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Oh pity! It’s so TIRESOME. Lawd.
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It is.
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No diggity, no doubt. ❤
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The taking it out on others is so stinky. I definitely have my bad days, but I try to avoid people on those. Spreading the happy is so much more fun. 🙂
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Absolutely!
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