Disappointment

I have pretty high standards; my husband’s are even higher. He is in a (medical) profession that requires absolute precision–there is no “close” or “pretty good” in his vocabulary. My profession is one that regularly takes me on the road as a performer–I routinely go out and perform, basically begging for criticism. My goal is always perfection–it has to be. There is no way I’d have made it in this career by shooting for a more practical, say, 93% in performance. I understand that perfection is unattainable; but, it still has to be our goal.

I find myself constantly disappointed by others. We’re currently having work done at our house, and I cannot understand the sliding timeline that people seem to be totally content with–one contracted group is three weeks behind schedule; another, two weeks behind. How do people get WEEKS behind a deadline? And, it is (was) a hard deadline. Their missing the deadline has resulted us having to reschedule a total of 8 other groups/individuals who have been on my calendar for months. Everything is in a state of chaos, and I’m disappointed that my well-laid plans have once again been turned upside down by other people’s shortcomings.

We have had so much go wrong with things that it’s hard to trust that there are competent people out there–nearly every contracted job has been done wrong at some step, nearly every furniture delivery has been damaged or scratched. Timelines go unheeded, and time (and money) is constantly wasted fixing, changing, sending back.

I know that we sound awful. But, we’re really pretty laidback people who trust the folks we enlist to do things. Today, after five months, we received a custom-made credenza that was delivered while our nanny was at the house. After the delivery came, she took a photo and sent it to me: the doors are three inches off from one another. How can someone have made that (expensive) piece and shipped it like that, and then the delivery folks just unpacked and left it like that? Cue me wasting two hours on the phone to get things sorted for them to come back tomorrow during a 5-hour delivery window to pick it back up. I mean, come on.

So, yes, 100% first-world problems. But, it’s so disheartening and discouraging. And it happens DAY. AFTER. FREAKING. DAY. It makes me want to give up in all sorts of ways. Like how I just ate a half a plate of cookies instead of the healthy dinner I had planned.

Day 103.