Bad, bad two days spent waiting for phone calls when all I wanted to do was run down to Derby to do some research at Town Hall and to plant pansies on my mother’s grave on the fifth anniversary of her death.
By the time one of the phone calls came, the steam was coming out of my ears and the guy got exactly what he deserved to hear, all in calm but firm language that made it clear that four months with no positive direction taken and with a deadline looming again next week, I was ready to move on unless he did what he was being paid to do.
It’s strange, but it seems that even as I mellow with age, the extended limits of my patience are being tried in ways unthinkable back in–yes–the good old days. People are just not as conscious of responsibility to others and to their jobs as they used to be. There are damn few areas where people put into their job what they’re getting paid to do. As the work ethic slides–and it’s not just the young folk, but the middle-aged have come to lower their standards to adjust–expectations goes down.
Except for those like me who can’t comprehend and so cannot accept it.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology