Expectations
I was talking to a friend of mine -- Sunny M -- today. She has a sales position that requires extensive travel, and her husband is a contract programmer who works from home.
She was talking about a conversation she had with a friend of hers, a mother of five, whose husband is an airline pilot. The mother was lamenting that her husband would complain when he got home and the house was a mess and dinner wasn't ready for him.
Said the mom, "It's not like I'm not working all day. I've got five children. I'm busy constantly. It takes all I've got to stay on top of the situation."
Sunny M said to the mom, "You mean he's upset that when he gets home and everything is cluttered and and dusty, and there's no food ready to eat?"
The mom said yes.
Sunny M said, "The same thing happens to me. It sucks. He's probably exhausted from jumping back and forth across time zones. Plus it's not like he's just looking out the window, because I bet he's concentrating all the time when he's flying, and he's eating poorly because it's hard to eat right in restaurants and airports, and then he gets home and he still can't relax because nothing's where it's supposed to be and everything's dirty and there's nothing healthy in the fridge. Yeah, I know exactly how that feels. It really sucks."
I'm not sure if Sunny M understands why I laughed when she said that.
She was talking about a conversation she had with a friend of hers, a mother of five, whose husband is an airline pilot. The mother was lamenting that her husband would complain when he got home and the house was a mess and dinner wasn't ready for him.
Said the mom, "It's not like I'm not working all day. I've got five children. I'm busy constantly. It takes all I've got to stay on top of the situation."
Sunny M said to the mom, "You mean he's upset that when he gets home and everything is cluttered and and dusty, and there's no food ready to eat?"
The mom said yes.
Sunny M said, "The same thing happens to me. It sucks. He's probably exhausted from jumping back and forth across time zones. Plus it's not like he's just looking out the window, because I bet he's concentrating all the time when he's flying, and he's eating poorly because it's hard to eat right in restaurants and airports, and then he gets home and he still can't relax because nothing's where it's supposed to be and everything's dirty and there's nothing healthy in the fridge. Yeah, I know exactly how that feels. It really sucks."
I'm not sure if Sunny M understands why I laughed when she said that.