Bad Employee

If I could get fired, I would be gone. I have been so darn lazy. I just can't seem to get myself to do anything. I know I should be doing things, but instead I play pinball and mess around with anything that catches my eye. I think working at any of the many crappy jobs I've held were easier than this.

I've said before that I don't want to own my own business, stating several reasons. I think the main one though is the one I never listed-I need a boss. I need someone to tell me what to do and ride my ass when I don't do it. It's the sign of a truly lazy person. I'll admit it. I fit that description. I have no self-motivation. If someone tells me to do something, I'll get it done. If I have some corporate obligation, I work hard and meet deadlines. When it's my family, I'm a pathetic slob.

The obvious answer would be to have John get after me. I don't know how well that would work. First of all, he's not very good at riding me. He will ask nicely to get something done, or hint at things in that passive aggressive manner of his, both of which don't work on me. I blow off the first method and get pissed at the second. What he really needs to do is bitch at me and nag me and get pissed himself. He never does any of those though. He would rather just wait it out until I get a wild hair than confront me.

I think maybe he thinks I'll eventually shape up. Maybe he's right, but it doesn't seem like it's going to happen in the very near future. I don't keep my responsibilities in mind. I know I need to do things. I know I have people depending on me, but I don't even give those things a thought when I'm looking around the house at all the papers and toys and dishes and clothes and mess. Instead I get frustrated. I hate everyone for being such pigs and feel under appreciated and taken for granted. Those feelings make doing the work next to last on my list of what I want to do.

I've always had a rebellious streak. The problem with this rebellion is it's not working. When I don't clean up, it doesn't spur the rest of the family to pitch in. They just get worse themselves. John is especially guilty of this. If the house is in disarray, he is the first to leave his junk lying around. He always states that as his biggest defense when I complain that he doesn't pull his weight in the cleaning department--mess makes him messy. I could accept that more readily if he weren't so bad when the place is actually clean. He's no different whether clean or messy, so that argument doesn't hold water with me.

I can sympathize with the "what's the use" attitude. Hell, I do that myself all the time, but I also understand that adding to the mess isn't going to make anything any better for us, and it's certainly not going to make it better on me. It might not happen right away, but I do start getting sick of it and seeing that fact, and I clean up. I may start by not leaving things lying around, putting them away when I'm done with them, and picking up here and there. I never just keep adding to it, which is more than I can say for John.

The kids are horrible too, but what can you expect from the example being set? We're slobs, so they are going to be slobs. It's that simple. To change them, we are first going to have to change ourselves. John is also going to have to do his part in this. I can't clean the place up only to have him act as if it's still a disaster area. And when I do get after him for being a slob, he sighs at me and complains and acts like it's ok for him to leave things lying around. That displays disrespect for me and what I do, and it is a very bad example for the kids.

John will argue to the ends of the earth that he respects me, and maybe he does in his head, but he doesn't in his actions. He didn't grow up in a household with a stay at home mom. His mom always worked. His mom also picked up after everyone all the time without complaint. So not only does he not have an example of a stay at home mom, but he grew up with what equates to a live-in maid. He never had to clean or cook or do anything around the house. He rarely had to clean his room. Everything just magically got done. His mom is so good at it that it does seem like magic.

I don't know if that's just the way she is, if she doesn't mind picking up like that, or if she just keeps her mouth shut. I do know that it made for a man that needed instructions to do laundry when he and his ex-wife split up. The guy was going to buy a new dryer because his wasn't drying anymore until I found out it was because he never, ever cleaned out the lint trap between the time his wife left in October to the time I moved in in June. Cleaning the lint trap wasn't on the instructions. There was a pile of clean clothes taller than me on top of his dryer. (He couldn't have seen the lint trap, even if he did know to clean it.) He never put his laundry away. He would rather iron or rewash something than put it where it belonged.

He subsisted on take out food and microwave dinners the whole time too and threw dishes away rather than wash them. When I moved in, he had one plate in his cupboard, which he wouldn't throw away because it was his favorite plate. I had to wash every dish, cup and utensil in the house (there weren't many) because he didn't wash dishes. He just rinsed them off and put them back in the cupboard. He was also ready to buy a new vacuum cleaner because his wouldn't suck anything up. Surprisingly, he did vacuum once in a while for all the good it did with a bag that was so full the intake hose had debris in it. It's a wonder his place looked as good as it did when I moved in, but it had only been eight months. Who knows how it might have looked had I been a good girl and not moved in with him after going out for only four months.

I know men have this bachelor image, and John's housework abilities are not all that uncommon. I wish I could accurately convey his level of ineptness. He really has no sense and no knowledge when it comes to these things. He's not ignorant, because he chooses not to know. If he knows how to take care of housework, he might have to do housework. It provides him an excuse, albeit a lame one.

The man is the king of excuses. I have never heard someone come up with so many reasons so quickly for doing what he does or for not doing what he doesn't. Some of the reasons are valid, but most are just pitiful attempts to justify his bad behavior. What he doesn't seem to recognize is that his bad behavior is just bad, and nothing is going to change that. It's like the guy that tried to rob the Perkins while a group of us were there. He got caught and tried to justify the theft of less than $20 by saying his mom was sick. No matter what, it's still wrong.

Not only do I have my own demons to overcome in the housework field, but I also have to battle John's. I know it's not my fight when it comes to him, but it does affect me, and I don't feel like I can just let it go. I don't feel respected, and he wants to make it out like it has nothing to do with respect because of his own shortcomings. To me, it still is a lack of respect. He can try to ride the wave of being unskilled in that area, but it doesn't hold water with me. (Oh my God. How did I manage the whole water thing there?) He needs to pull his weight and respect what I do. It's that simple.

I don't know what I'll do if he doesn't. I refuse to go about my business and just clean up after him. That lets him off the hook and doesn't give him any reason to change. It's pretty clear that rebelling against his behavior by doing the same thing myself isn't going to work either, so I'm going to have to find a way to resolve this whole situation and not live like pigs anymore. It's killing me. It's embarrassing and undermines my feelings of worth. Something has to be done. I just need to figure out what that might be.

Until that time, I have got to be better at my job. I can't let John's behavior be my excuse for not doing my work. I'm no better than he is if I'm using the same logic to avoid things. The kids and everyone else in this family suffers for it. I really don't need to raise more slobs to populate the earth. I think there are plenty of them out there already, and a whole lot of them live in this city as can be witnessed by the abundance of garbage all over the place, but that's a rant for another day. I need to work. I need to be my own boss. I need to ride my own ass and get things done. It's pretty simple when you get down to it. I need to stop letting my feelings get in the way and clean up around here. It's pretty clear the current method is not working, and no one else is going to do it for me.