As we continue to get things set up in our new home in Dixie -- the area, not the cup -- I have continued to reflect on some lessons learned in the process.
1) It's different when it doesn't snow a lot.
Back in New York, the potholes from last winter are still being fixed. Where you don't get a lot of snow, the roads don't get nearly the same damage. People have been telling me how they got a shocking SIX INCHES OF SNOW in one storm last winter, but there were precious few plows and I guess no salt trucks, so people had to wait until it melted. Which I suppose took a one or two days. Meanwhile, I have seen zero potholes.
Roads weakened by salt and other chemicals and damaged by the expanse of freezing water give way in spots. Not seeing much evidence of that here.
You see this brick structure leading out to the street? In New York, a plow would have busted the end of it years ago. Many times have I seen these kinds of things built, and many bricks have gone flying by March. Snow plows aren't invulnerable to ice and snow either -- and snow plowers are only human.
2) People really are friendlier down here.
New Yorkers always make the case that, while they act like jerks on the outside, they have a heart o' gold on the inside. And I think that's mostly true. But in this part of the south, at least, they act friendly on the outside, which is nice. And it's institutionalized: in Publix, the big supermarket chain, I've found that you not only don't you have to bag your own groceries*, you really can't -- the way the counter register line is set up, you can't reach them. Besides, there's a clerk already doing it. Customer service means something here, apparently.
*Self-checkouts do not apply; you gotta bag your stuff there.
Maybe the biggest, most general life lesson I had drilled into me was:
3) Sometimes "I did my best" doesn't matter.
We really hit the wall hard when moving day came. The last few days we were literally throwing things into boxes and hoping for the best. We should have been working harder to get things prepared before the big day, but it seemed like it would never come, and when it did, it happened faster than expected. So in the end, we just had to gut it out. Which meant that there was no "That's enough for today," no "I'm wiped out," no "I did my best."
Most jobs that are not in emergency services are specifically set up to make sure things can be done by reasonable staff in reasonable time, so you never run into this kind of panic. When I was in the magazine business, deadlines meant working late, because those presses would roll when scheduled. But even then, everyone was prepared and it didn't usually become a big problem.**
It had been a long time since I'd been caught in a situation where I could not quit until the job was done, however late, however exhausted, and it was humbling. And I lost some pants along the way, as I've detailed on this blog. The whole thing was a fuster cluck of massive proportions, and we're still digging out.
But at least we don't expect to be digging a lot of snow.
As the man says, everything in life is a blessin' or a lesson. I hope I've had enough lessons for a little while.
**A beloved colleague in the magazine game went to work for a celebrity rag for a while, and found herself working all night long to get the stupid magazine out the door on time. While it was a sort of news magazine, there was no need for that kind of panic and mania and drama; it was just poorly run.
No comments:
Post a Comment