winkgirl4's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I get by with a little help from my friends I get by with a little help from my friends. --John LennonI have this particular client who is really just incredibly needy. So needy, in fact, that I indulge a lot of his eccentricities to keep his business. We won�t go into what those eccentricities are but I will tell you that he�s one quirky man. It just so happens that when this particular client needed a delivery driver for his company that I had a candidate who was more than qualified for the job. I send over a resume and a background summary and the client hires Shannon on the spot. (Fine. Great. Wonderful.) Well, that is until the job demanded more than forty hours a week and Shannon decided (after a month or so) that it wasn�t his cup of tea. He returns the keys and the delivery van and bids farewell to the client- the client who is not so happy to see him go. The client was, in fact, so unhappy to see him go that he got more than just a little angry with me over Shannon�s sudden departure. The relationship between my quirky client and I started straining it�s limits and no amount of over-indulging his eccentricities seemed to be helping. Meanwhile, I tell Shannon that I�d never be able to place him in a job ever again. Ever. Sure, I tell people that every day, but I don�t ever have to say it to my friends- let alone my best friend. Now, more than straining the relationship with the quirky client, my relationship with Shannon started straining. I was frustrated at being in that position of having to defend his actions and he was angry at my frustration. Sensible situation, I guess. Well, when Shannon returned to McAlester, after he and his wife split up, I was conscientious enough to know that it was a hard time for him. I tried as best as I could to be understanding and supporting but it just so happens that I was having a pretty tough time of things, myself. Christian and I had broken up. I wasn�t getting to move to California. All of my long-laid plans were falling apart. I needed comfort, too. I needed someone to talk to. Lord knows I couldn�t talk to Christian as we were both trying to cycle through all of the emotions surrounding our break up. I couldn�t (and didn�t) want to talk to my family- who were already taking every opportunity to tell me how this was probably for the best. I could and did talk to Charles but he was pretty much getting his fill of pissy, self-pitying whining as both Christian and I were confiding in him. I needed a friend and my only real friend was just as messed up as I was. Anyway, to get back to the point, when Shannon started coming out of his funk and decided that he needed to get a job, he asked if I could help. Of course I remember what happened the last time but he needed a job. This was different than his just needing to earn moving money. Now, he really needed to work. How could I say no? (Okay. Okay. Fine. I�m a pushover. I admit it.) So I do what I do best. I find him a job. I find him a job as a bookkeeper for a lumber company that is hesitant to hire him because he�s really over qualified for the position. But they hire him anyway. Here�s the problem: he doesn�t really like this job, either. Correction: he likes this job. He likes the people. He likes the company. He likes the laid back atmosphere. He also likes that he gets lumber and construction materials at incredibly low prices. What he doesn�t like is that the books never balance because fifteen people use one register and there are no checks or balances to determine where the odd amounts are coming from. He doesn�t like that every three days he has to run a three day report based on the information from the daily reports that, again, don�t ever balance. He doesn�t like having to file papers in four different locations in the same building when no one EVER uses any of the copies of those forms for anything. And he doesn�t like that he�s the only one who seems to care about those things. Oh, and he doesn�t like working fifty some hours a week. Hm. Though leaving that company certainly wouldn�t ruin our relationship, I think he tries harder to make it work because of how badly the last job ended. And I know he wants to talk to someone but he can�t talk to me because it feels like talking to his boss- not his friend. When he talks to me I can�t suppress my natural tendency to want to suggest possible solutions and it ends up feeling like a work meeting, not a gripe session. He�s got a lot on his mind and, I think, he�s feeling like there�s no one out there to talk to. This gives me a strange perspective as not long ago I felt exactly the same way. I can�t remember if he ever offered to listen to my troubles but I know that others did and, for whatever reason, I didn�t feel like I could confide in them. It feels strange to actually want to be there for someone else and to know that they don�t feel like they can actually trust you with their concerns. I don�t know if a possible solution to this would be to let him quit and find a job on his own where, when he wants to gripe about work, he can feel free to do that without his �boss� trying to fix things all the time. I wonder if he regrets asking me to help him find a job. I don't know- because HE WON'T TALK TO ME. Still, even if he didn't work for me, there�s not guarantee that he�d, then, want to trust me with his confidences. I don�t know. I just don�t like being one of those people that you just can�t talk to. You know what I mean? Everyone hears what you say. Friends listen to what you say. Best friends listen to what you don't say. --Unknown3:38 p.m. - 2003-09-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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