Today I am waiting for workers to visit to sort jobs around the house. We are with a housing association and in theory we are well taken care of. There were years in the past when the system worked well, but since Covid, the service has suffered. I have waited three months for this appointment and I don’t know which job it is for, I have several booked, they give them job numbers and I do not know which is which job. I feel lucky though, home owners can have terrible trouble getting work done and then there is the expense.
The think is I hate the waiting, we have a time slot, between 1pm and 6pm, its a long time, luckily for this one its only my daughter’s room they need to enter or the guttering outside, so no cleaning up for me, Yey, that is a relief. I could go back to bed and wait but feel I should use the time productively, so here I am, waiting and writing.
The worse bit is when they get to working on something that takes time, I always feel embarrassed having people in, I apologise for the state of the place as if it is ever any better, I know they see worse places than mine, I know I am a polite, helpful, grateful customer and need nor worry about there impressions yet still I feel uncomfortable.
Sitting still while someone is working feels wrong, but usually the staying awake waiting tires me to the point of inactivity, so I often sit and wait for them to finish. It is always a relief when the job is done. There is always a mess to clear afterwards and I never say anything about it in the review they ask for afterwards. Somehow it seems to be my job to clear up their mess, is it that I am a woman or not working, while they are? Both maybe,
I try to assert myself more nowadays, often they send someone who has no idea how to fix the problem. It took years to get the edging around the bath sorted. A new bathroom sixteen years ago, left a rut around the bath, water collected and caused mould and rotted the sealant, they just kept adding more sealant, which didn’t work. Eventually I worked out what to do and told them and finally a tiler came, a number of times, removed it all, and put in strips around to seal it all and keep it looking nice. What a faff that was though, so the sink still needs the same treatment, its on my list. So many jobs are bodged or done badly, you have to stand over and say something really but I hate that.
We used to be given a whole day appointment, expected to wait home, like we have nothing better to do. Then they worked out the school run can’t be missed and started times within that, now they have three different time slots at least. There was also a phase of not being given an appointment at all, just someone would turn up, when they could do it, expecting us all to be home all day. They text or ring now before they come generally but they tend to say, ‘you are our next job, we will be with you in ten minutes’, so I can’t chance popping out. The worse days are when you wait all day, only to get a text near the end of the day with a new appointment date. This happens all to often, so I wait with baited breath, expecting the worst.
Of course everything is online now, and all information sent by text. It feels weird to me, old fashioned as I am. I miss, letters and emails and I still call, I like to speak to someone, even though I find such calls hard, I am swimming against the tide with that and must get my head around the online system, some time soon.
Why do I feel trapped by the waiting? I planned my week around the appointment, I don’t have anywhere to be and yet I feel stuck. I walked the dogs before 1 pm and hopefully they will come before it goes dark so I can run them again, but maybe it will be a blessing if I can’t take them.
Well here’s to the frustration and the powerlessness of waiting….
Chris. xx
Living With ME 