what you get vs: what you want (oh Botheration!)

oh botheration!

The height of cleverness is to be able to conceal it. (Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld.)
I know that!

These last few days, I have been struggling to keep it concealed.

Situation #1:

The client is a tough assignment but not always. The gf of the client is not supposed to be in the room with us while we attend to her partner. She hovers. She makes redundant suggestions. She *trains* us in critical tone. She knows everything of course.
And who is she anyway?

She is an angry bitter woman who hooked up with her dead friends' husband.
Too bad that just a year or so into this new playtime, he had a devastating illness.
He has the cash, so she does the care. She would not phrase it that way. It is the truth though.

She puts on the Lady Bountiful face and volunteers here, there, and everywhere.
She rarely mentions her rage and frustration outside the home.
It builds up and she blows. She blows and then he blows. And we get the crossfire.
She is always angry with something or someone and has endless stories about this business or that person. The moral high ground is hers. Of course.

I would really rather not be involved in that situtation but I am there. It is a small thing to ask she not be involved with our care. Too big for her though. She is a righteous pain in the ass.

I was looking at my schedule and saw the name a few too many times. It just left me flat.
I knew I had to change my attitude so I wrote in permanent marker on my workbook:
"Never believe that a few caring people cannot change the world, for indeed, that is all who ever have." I vowed to look at it a few times a day so I would forget what a pain she is.

While at that assignment my co-worker asked me what my book said so I told him to read it.
I mentioned it was one of my favourite quotes. She picked up my book and made a show of straining her eyes at it.

"What does that third from the last word say? I cannot read it! Look at it! What letter is THAT supposed to be? When I went to school we had to learn how to write properly...."
and on she went blah blah rant blah blah

Talk about missing the point.
Obviously it was far more important to her to ridicule my writing than to ponder the meaning of a quote meant to uplift.

When I left today, she was sitting at her kitchen table telling my co-worker about a cruise she and her daughter are planning to go on. Her partner is sitting at the other end listening.
I do not believe he is invited. Oh, that's a caring companion. And so very classy.
She really believes we are much less competant than she is. In every way.
She truly thinks of herself as a nuturer.

Interesting.
But stupid.

-=-