Just last night, I made a post that said this:

Work: I enjoy my work, and I enjoy my job – as much as anyone can expect to, anyway. But I’m pretty well tired of tap-dancing around people who can’t handle hearing that they’re failing. Hey – guess what. You fail. I fail. We already know you’re good at what you do, it doesn’t mean you don’t screw up. When you do, can we just admit it and move on to fixing it? I’d like to do the same when I screw up, if that’s cool with everyone. I move for no more complicated scenario building for how nothing is anyone’s fault or everyone’s fault. I don’t care whose fault it is, I just want to fix it and get on with things. Please. Pleeeeeease.

And I’d now like to add the other end of the spectrum to that.

Can we also not flip out as though one failure means that someone has gone totally off the reservation and should now possibly be shot on sight? It’s just as tedious as musical blame chairs, really – and a huge waste of emotional energy. A stupid mistake does not mean someone’s IQ or talent has suddenly evaporated. It does not mean they are suddenly incapable of doing their job. If heads need to roll for some other reason, then just say that. But please, for the love of all that is sane – could we maybe not act as though they’re suddenly a body snatcher that needs to be dealt with?

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It almost sounds like something I like to call an idiot revelation – which is, for the previously unexposed, when you realize something that makes so much sense that you’re pretty sure you’re an idiot for not having realized it before. That a simpler life is a good thing… definitely qualifies. And it’s not just any one particular thing. I’m pretty over clutter as a concept.

Work: I enjoy my work, and I enjoy my job – as much as anyone can expect to, anyway. But I’m pretty well tired of tap-dancing around people who can’t handle hearing that they’re failing. Hey – guess what. You fail. I fail. We already know you’re good at what you do, it doesn’t mean you don’t screw up. When you do, can we just admit it and move on to fixing it? I’d like to do the same when I screw up, if that’s cool with everyone. I move for no more complicated scenario building for how nothing is anyone’s fault or everyone’s fault. I don’t care whose fault it is, I just want to fix it and get on with things. Please. Pleeeeeease.

Apartment: This is where the physical manifestation of the clutter lives. I could be generous and say… I have too much stuff for this sized apartment (or at least this sized apartment with about two shoeboxes worth of closet space). But the simpler answer seems to be – I just need to have less damned stuff. But then, see – I’d like to get rid of a fair amount of the stuff I have, too… and replace some of it with things that look simpler. Even more than that perhaps, I’m over the building itself. The bathroom of non-stop maintenance issues (from black mold to the sink being clogged with latex paint because of the ceiling damage from a leak), the door hinges that look like they were screwed in a whopping eighth of an inch (in plaster, no less) and so come out at every opportunity, the maintenance crew that shows up for about 1/5 of the appointments they make. Tired of having to call the rental agent multiple times to get anything accomplished, tired of the floors that tilt nearly 15°. Tired of the ghetto stairwell. There’s no cleaning this part up, though – the answer will have to be a move. I have my eye on something in Va Beach at the moment – but that’s just the first thing I came across I liked. Something right on the beach has some appeal too.

… there’s more, of course.

But I started to write the next parts… about finances, and relationships, and paperwork, and and and… and realized that it would be only slightly more difficult to do stuff about it than it would be to bitch about it. So I think I’m going to add a subcategory in here called “Simpler” – and anytime I do something to accomplish this, I’ll pat myself on the back here. Being realistic, I’ll probably bitch here some more too.

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