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Aug. 1st, 2018 05:16 pm
Stepping up
Ugh, more condo nonsense. The gates weren't locking so the new Prez hired someone to fix them. I asked why weren't we replacing them instead, since that was one of the options discussed at our last meeting, and she got rather defensive, saying fixing them for $500 was the "obvious choice" when replacing them entirely would cost $2000. Around the same time, she also announced a schedule for yardwork without (to my knowledge) discussing it with anyone and when I didn't volunteer for a month just assigned me one.
I don't know if this just coincided with the onset of my funk or contributed to it but for a whole month I haven't been able to face the prospect of doing any work outside. Just the thought of it made me queasy inside. I even cut down my time on the back porch to avoid running into her and her wife. Eventually her wife e-mailed me to "confirm" that I would do the work assigned to me, which set off new waves of anxiety. It took me two weeks to write a response. The reply was kindly phrased, but the message was clearly We had to do what we did and we're not open to discussing it. I didn't see any sense in replying
Yesterday everything came to a head when it was revealed that the fix didn't work, the gates were still broken, and she was "looking for quotes" to replace them. Within a couple hours, she'd already scheduled the work. I asked "Could the rest of us owners possibly be allowed a chance to review the details?" and things went downhill from there. By the next morning, she'd announced she was "stepping back", then that we were preceding with the work anyway, then that she was resigning. It was a terse letter, curtly informing us that neither of them would be performing any work for the association in any capacity again.
So I guess I come out looking like the bad guy in all this even though she never wanted the position in the first place (as she sourly reminded us all in her resignation) and clearly wasn't suited to the more consultative aspects of it. Yes, it's a lot of thankless work. But it doesn't make sense to ignore people when they try to step up and then complain that you're stuck doing everything. When it came to the landscaping, I felt I was being exploited for my labour even while my opinions were completely disregarded, which killed my desire to do anything. That's what I put in the letter and I felt it wasn't heard; now I think maybe it was heard in a different way entirely.
The positive side is that this has already encouraged me to do more again. I've already scheduled an appointment with a fencing company for an estimate on a metal fence tomorrow and I plan to go through with it. Yesterday evening I finally got around to doing some spot watering and was relieved to see that nothing seems to have died during our mini heatwaves. I'm trying to recruit someone else to partner with me on the yardwork this month. (One of my problems with the assignments is that half the owners were ignored, despite the fact that many of them have been willing to contribute in the past.)
We'll see if it holds. The blues are still very much with me and could end up dragging me down again. I'm considering finding another therapist, one who's a little more exhortative than the one I was seeing before. But I discovered in a discussion of reading habits that I've escaped at least some of the effects of the "widow's brain" that has ravaged some of my peers. Maybe getting dirt under my nails again will help cure some of the others.
I don't know if this just coincided with the onset of my funk or contributed to it but for a whole month I haven't been able to face the prospect of doing any work outside. Just the thought of it made me queasy inside. I even cut down my time on the back porch to avoid running into her and her wife. Eventually her wife e-mailed me to "confirm" that I would do the work assigned to me, which set off new waves of anxiety. It took me two weeks to write a response. The reply was kindly phrased, but the message was clearly We had to do what we did and we're not open to discussing it. I didn't see any sense in replying
Yesterday everything came to a head when it was revealed that the fix didn't work, the gates were still broken, and she was "looking for quotes" to replace them. Within a couple hours, she'd already scheduled the work. I asked "Could the rest of us owners possibly be allowed a chance to review the details?" and things went downhill from there. By the next morning, she'd announced she was "stepping back", then that we were preceding with the work anyway, then that she was resigning. It was a terse letter, curtly informing us that neither of them would be performing any work for the association in any capacity again.
So I guess I come out looking like the bad guy in all this even though she never wanted the position in the first place (as she sourly reminded us all in her resignation) and clearly wasn't suited to the more consultative aspects of it. Yes, it's a lot of thankless work. But it doesn't make sense to ignore people when they try to step up and then complain that you're stuck doing everything. When it came to the landscaping, I felt I was being exploited for my labour even while my opinions were completely disregarded, which killed my desire to do anything. That's what I put in the letter and I felt it wasn't heard; now I think maybe it was heard in a different way entirely.
The positive side is that this has already encouraged me to do more again. I've already scheduled an appointment with a fencing company for an estimate on a metal fence tomorrow and I plan to go through with it. Yesterday evening I finally got around to doing some spot watering and was relieved to see that nothing seems to have died during our mini heatwaves. I'm trying to recruit someone else to partner with me on the yardwork this month. (One of my problems with the assignments is that half the owners were ignored, despite the fact that many of them have been willing to contribute in the past.)
We'll see if it holds. The blues are still very much with me and could end up dragging me down again. I'm considering finding another therapist, one who's a little more exhortative than the one I was seeing before. But I discovered in a discussion of reading habits that I've escaped at least some of the effects of the "widow's brain" that has ravaged some of my peers. Maybe getting dirt under my nails again will help cure some of the others.