Beneficial Expectations

So, I’m out on the town last night, and it’s getting pretty late, and it’s time to go home. A friend of mine was still there alone, and I asked if she needed a ride home. Not a pick-up deal or anything of the sort—it’s just a hell of a walk in the cold. She assured me she was well on her way, and that her ride was coming, and I was okay with all that.

Then she said something. “Expectation is the worst word in the English language.”

“It can be a hell of a bear,” I replied.

“It sucks—because you think people should be a certain way, or act a certain way, and really—no one is going to change their behavior.”

“I have to agree. Expectations can get you in trouble,” I said.

Some time ago, I was in a place where one paid a great deal of money to sort out personal problems of this sort. Trained professionals seem to have a one-track mind in a great many instances, and the situations which may arise from false expectations are no exception. I can’t say with certainty whether or not any amount of this type of counseling has been at all beneficial, nor can I stake a claim to its detriment. What I know is that in most situations, there are a hell of a lot of different ways to evaluate the events at hand, and there is almost always no one “right” answer…

There was one such instance where in a large group setting, about thirty or so of us were gathered in one place to try and figure out why we sucked. People were in the place sucking for different reasons, each one thinking they had some sort of individual monopoly on shittiness. It wears on a person after a while. There’s only so much of that mindset and beatdown that people can take. Well, only so much I can take, anyway. But there would occasionally be lectures, and we’d all gather in our collective shitpot to try and stir up the mess a bit so that everyone in the county could smell it. Maybe I was having a bad day..

The lecture that day was about expectations. It began innocuously enough, a rather young woman (I’d say she was maybe a few years removed from college, at most) was up there at the dry-erase board writing down keywords about this, that, and the other. And honestly, I just didn’t pay too much attention to that stuff most of the time. We were supposed to take notes, and reflect on this stuff after the fact, in our alone time. I took notes only to avoid the unnecessary embarrassment of falling asleep in this public setting. It would be a pain in the ass to do, because you wouldn’t get any good sleep, and then the wakeup call would be miserable in addition to everything else, once you caught your bearings and actually realized where the hell you were and what you were doing. So I took excellent notes.

And maybe fifteen minutes or so into this lecture about the demerits of expectation, how as I’d discussed with my friend last night that it can without a doubt get you in trouble. She then leapt toward the subject of individual expectations, and how we probably all needed to take another look at our relative standing in life, and how it should likely be adjusted to meet some revised and dumbed down version of ourselves. (That’s how I took it anyway)

“So, if you think you’re going to get out of here, and everyone is going to treat you with a higher degree of respect and trust, what do we say about that?”

Silence.

“It’s going to take a little bit of time to earn these things back. We can’t expect things to go the way we want them to go all the time,” the young woman would explain to what she must have perceived to be a group of mental kindergartners. Some people would talk slowly to you in these settings—set the common denominator ridiculously low. That added to an immense frustration in my day.

“So, if you think you’re going to leave this group, and eventually become Vice President of the company you’re working for, what would we say about that?”

More silence, but I was sure getting pissed.

“We should appreciate and be grateful for what we have, and be happy we’ve got the opportunity to work hard in any capacity we can.”

I’d had enough. “You know, I’m not here because I was kicking so much ass I felt like I had to tone it down a notch.”

“What do you mean,” she asked.

“You ask that question about being Vice President of the firm when we get out of here—Hell, that’s limiting in and of itself. Who are you to say that we shouldn’t gun for being the damned President, if in fact we’re the most qualified for the position?”

“That’s the sort of thinking that’s gotten everyone in here in trouble,” she started, and probably would have continued, but now, I was enormously impatient with her line of bullshit.

“No, it’s not. You’re promoting exactly the sort of thinking that gets everyone in here in the first place.” At the time, I had no job, no life, and no real prospects for the improvement of either. But I didn’t have to have anyone telling me to lower the bar a little..

“I don’t see how that’s the case.”

“No, you don’t.” Now I was kind of talking down to this poor young woman, who probably had never been challenged in any way of this sort, and it probably wasn’t fair to her, but she happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. “You don’t see how it’s the case, because I can tell you don’t really have any insight into what’s going on in these rooms, except for what you’ve read in some goddamned book, or what you’ve managed to absorb from whatever time you’ve been around here. And you just might be dead ass wrong about this. All I’m saying.”

Then she turned this thing around in the way that most psychologists and counselors will do, and challenged me to go ahead and take the lead here. Another miscalculation. “So, what is it that you’re going to do when you get out of here? What’s you’re plan?”

“I figure I’m going to set a series of goals for my life to try and get to a position where I think I should be. I might put Senator of the state of Kansas on the list, and I’m not claiming I’d be good at the job, or even that I would want the job, but I guarantee if I put something on that list, and it’s in my best interest to pursue it, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some constructed fear of failure dictate the way I go out and conduct my life. It’s all I’ve done for several years. I’m sick of it.”

“Well, maybe instead of Senator, you could think about running for county government or something like that.”

“You’re still missing the point. I just used that as a representative example. I don’t know what I’m going to put on that list of goals and accomplishments yet, but if someday, I want to run for senator, I guaran-goddamned-tee you I’ll go out and run for senator. It has nothing at all to do with my overall point, except that you’re continuing to try and beat people down a little more. I’m just saying it doesn’t do much good to kick a fellow around too much when he’s been flopping around in the dirt for years. It quits working.”

Hey, by now at least no one in the room was sleeping… “I think you’re setting yourself up in a dangerous way here, because you’ve got preconceived notions of what you think should happen, and..”

I cut her off, “See, you’re just not going to get it. What you’re telling me might work in your mind for 90% of the people in this room, but guess what? Ninety percent of the people in this room aren’t even going to make it a fucking year trying to solve exactly the problems they’re here to address right now. I’m telling you right now I’m not listening to the defeatism anymore. I know I suck. I didn’t come here to learn to come to terms with sucking. Not my style. I’m here to do something about it. I’m just pointing out an important paradox here, and I think it just might be important enough that someone else might have to hear it too. The only thing limiting me right now is me. Is that too much self-reliance? Maybe. But what choices do I have right now?

“And I’ll dabble a bit with the expectations of others too, now that you’ve got me going,” I continued. She was looking at me with a pathetic, ‘no one in the world can help this lost cause’ look. “What about all those other people around me that I’ve supposedly ruined through my behaviors? Those are the best people in the world, and I have to maintain a high degree of expectations from my family and friends, because they’ve done nothing except to exceed my level of expectation to this point. They’ve been great, and now I’m supposed to get out of here and be surprised that they continue to treat me like a human being? That’s bullshit.

“You throw out all those expectations of other people, and what do you have left? You’ve got a pretty big vacuum where your life should be, it seems to me. What if I go out of my way to count on someone when they don’t necessarily have to be there for me, but I know they will be there? We’re social creatures. Sometimes we need other people. Am I supposed to act surprised? Like that’s some sort of big fucking accident? I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t work that way. You have to have the good sense to know who is in your corner, and yeah, occasionally, you have to keep your guard up. But what about all those good things that come out of life when people meet and even exceed your expectations? What about the love, and the trust, and the hope? What about the fucking hope? This shitty construct you’ve got up on the board—I’m damned happy that at the end of the hour someone with some good sense can come in here and erase all that.”

By that time, I felt like I needed a cigarette, so I got up from the table, and that’s what I did. I wasn’t the only person to leave the room. I didn’t see that young woman around after that too much, and I certainly didn’t see her in a lecture.

And last night, I hugged my friend goodnight, and said goodbye to her, hoping against all hope neither one of us was left with an unreasonable expectation for the remainder of the evening.

Architecture and Footings

Well, I guess I won't try the transliteration feature again. Especially in Hindi. It's bad enough that I know I don't know what I'm talking about, but that was brutal. Is English still an official language in New Dehli? I hope so...

A long time ago, I worked for a builder in the area, and we did a lot of new commercial construction. I didn't have a whole lot of interest in it at the time, except that I wanted the ability to somehow not be taken by a contractor later in life. Turns out I'm now one of those people who's "out to get me." Neither here nor there...

It seems like every commercial job we had featured the same architect. We'll call him Doug. I think Doug was actually his goddamned name, and I hope someday he has the opportunity to read this. He probably remembers me. Anyway, the beginning of each new job was a sort of Anti-Christmas. We never knew when those rolled up plans came out of the tube exactly what was going to be in there, but it became apparent to me and anyone else with any common sense that it certainly wasn't going to be good.

We're all sitting around on the lumber pile having lunch, baking in the June sun, I'd ask Richard, "Hey, man, you get coal in your stocking again from Doug?"

"My sock has a hole in it," Richard would deadpan. I called Richard Diablo, because he worked like the devil. Hell, he probably still does. The man dug out the crawl space of his house with a pick axe, shovel and wheelbarrow to give himself a full basement...

"How about you, Darrel? Anything good in there for you?" I would ask the man I called 'mumbles.' I'm not sure I ever understood a sentence that man ever uttered. I told myself that Darrel had replied that maybe Friday was a good day to eat fish. I never learned very much from Darrel. I think he knew what he was doing, but I never really figured out if I was right about that.

"What about you, Jeff?" I'd finally ask the new kid on the job.

"Just a bunch of coal, but it smells a lot like Doug's piss."

The short lesson here is that if one is to call oneself an Architect, one should probably have some confidence that the structure is feasible.

Here's the definition: 1. One who designs and supervises the construction of buildings or other large structures. 2. A planner or deviser.

Okay. So from my experience, Doug was not number one. We'll get into that later. I guess he would be operating in the dream world of definition two, of which no qualification or requirements must be met for the fantasy to be upheld.

Hell, I'm an architect, by definition two! I've designed a bridge to Mars, and I just don't understand why Nasa won't build it. I'd probably make a lot of money on the goddamned thing, and I could put a lot of people to work! Space race, my ass. We win it! Why won't they build my interplanetary bridge?!?

I guess I've made my point. It's been my experience that the only good architects are those with actual building experience. I'm sure there are exceptions, and if anyone knows who they are, I'd be fascinated to know them...

The other builder for whom I'd previously worked for viewed Architects with the same disdain he held for government. He was a spec builder, and a damned good one. He's still building spec homes and selling them. Right now. In this economy. So that should tell you something. He knows what he's doing, and he does it. There's a lot to be said for that. We never had architects, and we had as little government as possible. His operation was quite the dictatorship, but it worked...

With architects, we have this problem that there is some "vision" in their mind that can't be modified or altered. 'Why, it looks perfect here on the blueprint. Why can't those idiot contractors get this thing done?' I hear murmurings from a thousand cubicles over the tapping of the Autocad. Meanwhile, said Architect surely has lunch delivered, to ensure he doesn't have to leave the office.

So, back to that hot summer. For the first few days showing up on these new sites, we'd ask the General Contractor, "So, have you heard from Doug about those problems with the plans?"

"Not yet."

Insert running two or three month long running joke here. Meanwhile, someone has to build something...So a lot of the time, the architects of structures are the lowest paid and most knowing on the site--the laborers, carpenters, plumbers, and electricians who actually have to make things happen. Maybe it's the impatience of waiting for the answer that would set the project back far further than the implementation of any necessary changes...

So we're a couple of months along into the building of this eye clinic, and Doug saunters onto the job site. His office is in the same town. Of 10,000 people. On Main Street. Which is also the highway. So, old Doug has been insanely busy with other projects he felt a pressing need to ruin, or he's been hiding from this one, or whatever...but here's Doug. And he locks up the brakes of his SUV like the place is on fire, and he shares some words with the GC, and they're pointing at Richard and me, as we're working on one of the parapet towers. We had to modify the parapets to make them functional. Doug obviously immediately recognized we didn't share his vision.

And it was damned hot that day. Impatience and heat are a historically bad combination. Many more murders occur in the summer heat than in winter. This is no coincidence. And I'll tell you what, the heat coming off Doug's rolled copper roof was something special--but Richard and I are up there in it--because someone had to do it.

Doug walks up to the base of the cherry-picker after his discussion with the GC, and finally says, "Excuse me? Can you fellows tell me why these parapets look terrible?"

I had the answer, but I did not have the authority, or the patience. I just looked at Richard, because we both knew this day was coming. It really was only a function of time and offense. Richard proceeded to explain very politely, "Well, Doug, it's good to see you..." and he continued to try to explain why exactly we'd done what we'd done, and how this really was the best way to try and go about the serious business of staying on schedule, and so forth...and Doug was not about to be convinced.

"I just don't understand," said Doug, "This isn't at all like it's drawn up in the plans!"

Snapping point. "Doug, you don't know me, but it's time we met. I'm Slade. Grab the plans. I'm bringing the bucket down, and you can show us exactly how we can avoid this unfortunate situation in the future."

By this time the GC is laughing--he's tried diplomacy too--and Richard says, "Gee, Slade. You think he's going to make us cut that parapet down?"

"Hell, no. He can't. We've been over this twenty times. So's the GC. We've been trying to get Doug's ass to come ten blocks all summer. It's hot. I just want to see what he says about it."

So Doug goes back and sifts through the miscellaneous tubes of shit he carries around with him, and finally finds the one most relevant to this particular building struggle of his creation. And naturally, Richard and I have to direct this fool through his own set of drawings to find the relevant elevations, details and specs pertinent to the task in question. And Doug brought his own tape measure, too. We were bickering over nine inches here, if I recall, and it was obvious to him that Richard, me, and the GC were all cursed with similarly faulty equipment. He was right about that in one regard.

And we're in the bucket, Doug, Richard, and myself for quite a little while. Long enough for a lot of measuring. Long enough for many stupid and previously resolved issues with which Doug could have easily acquainted himself had he cared a bit. And finally after about fifteen minutes of Doug climbing around on this goddamned thing, it was long enough for Doug to work up a sweat. "This can't be. I'll have to fix this drawing."

So we get out of the bucket, and Doug is off to fix the vision to match the reality. Some people just don't get it.

Example 1

Wow, does time pass quickly when you're not doing enough.

Example 1: Somehow, the other day I was so busy doing some damned thing that I managed to flatten my neighbor's mailbox in the truck. I doubt I made it 100 yards, and in that space of time, I'd managed to tear out of my own driveway, get the truck up to nearly 50 miles an hour (20 over the posted limit, which is too goddamned low), while simultaneously opening the mail (it was an offer from Time magazine--a year for $20), and texting my business partner to inform him the 1099s had arrived.

At the same time, I noticed that there was a pedestrian walking down the street, and there was a crane being used to place trusses on a new school being built on my street. This combination of stimuli was unfortunate for one plastic mailbox, and the front end of the truck. I'm quite proud, at this moment that I saw the pedestrian, and the look on his face after the mailbox incident spoke volumes of his reciprocal pleasure.

I'll note here that there was no chance in the world I would subscribe to Time magazine. None. The magazine doesn't interest me in the slightest. I don't watch the news anymore. I try not to watch tv anymore. I don't even know what the hell I'm doing on the internet, for that matter...But I guess I felt like I had some void in time there. Unless, in that mailing there would have been an offering of a free mailbox. That would have been the confluence of events possible to get a response from my address. I already have world maps...

Anyway, the pedestrian had something of a funny look on his face after I'd locked up the brakes on the truck, spun the tires in reverse and wheeled in to the neighbor's drive. I said something I thought was witty to the effect of, "How'd you like that one?"

"I'm glad that wasn't me."

"Me too," the gentleman was walking in kind of a rural area, and I assumed he'd lost his driving privileges somehow, so to make it worse, I added, "and they let me have a licence!"

I think the humor was completely lost on the guy by this point, and he just kept on walking down the road. I picked up all the bigger pieces of what was left of the mailbox and started the walk of shame up to my unknown neighbor's door.

I'm a terrible neighbor. I didn't know this person, and even after flattening the mailbox, I have no idea who she is. What's worse, I don't particularly care who she is, but I did feel bad at the time about ruining her mailbox, mostly because it is a Federal offense. But here I am walking up to her door, mailbox empty except for all the shattered plastic inside. She came to the door with a big smile on her face. She must have seen, or at least heard what happened. "Hi," I said, "I'm your neighbor who runs over your mailbox!" She said hi back, and I continued, "I don't have an excuse for this, of course. It wasn't deliberate or anything, but I just don't take the time to pay attention to what I'm doing, and I don't obey very many traffic laws."

"Don't worry about it," she said. "It happens all the time. You know, you're the first person who's ever run over that thing and actually told us about it."

"Well, if I've run over it before, I'm sorry about that too. But I don't know if I've done that or not," I replied. I was telling the truth. I used to drink a lot. She now had a more apprehensive look on her face. "How do you want me to fix this thing? I'd be happy to replace the box."

"Oh, we'll take care of it," she said.

"You sure? I could get a steel one, that way I could really make a racket next time?"

"It's okay...really." I don't think she liked the entire situation any more than I did. So I gave her my name, and pointed at the house, and told her if she reconsidered how she could find me. Now, I was back on my way to get in a big fucking hurry to repair a tire...