Guest Rant

So what do you do when you have a "wanna slap B type of day" rant about on Roses Random Rants!

Here is the first guest rant, from my pal o pal Kippy

When I was a little girl, my mother had this saying. I didn’t understand it fully at the time, but as I’ve matured, I’ve come to grasp it’s reality.

Piss poor planning on your part should not result in an emergency on my behalf.

Take a second to think about how often this happens to you in your daily life. Really let it sink it.

Someone you work with, your significant other, or perhaps your child does not do something that they are either expected to do or have already committed to doing. Perhaps your co-worker didn’t send you a piece of paperwork that you need. You asked your significant other to take something out of the freezer in order for it to thaw before you get home and he or she forgot. Your child left his or her class project at home.

This means you are now set into a frenzy.

Your report is now late because your co-worker didn’t complete their job.

Dinner will now take an extra 30 minutes because you have to thaw something out or head to the store to buy something else to make.

You will now be late to work because you’re driving back home to pick up your son or daughter’s project.

Step 1: Piss poor planning.

Step 2: My energy is wasted on your emergency.

Let me explain this to you. I work on budgets. My money is budgeted. My time is budgeted. My energy is budgeted. I’m in the middle of my own personal energy crisis.

There are 24 hours in a day. 8 of which I spend sleeping. 2 of which I spend bathing or preparing to start my day. That means I have about 14 productive hours in a day, each hour taking up 7% of my energy.

Regular days, I spend about 60% of my daily energy at work, 10% of my daily energy getting to and from work, and 10% of my daily energy cooking and/or eating. Do that math, that leaves me with only 20% of my daily energy to devote to myself, my home, my family, my faith, my fitness, my pet, or any hobbies I try to have.

Let’s be honest, I don’t usually even have 20% to myself any more. Dishes take 3% of my energy. Laundry takes at least 7% of my energy. A gym trip is a huge splurge at 10% of my daily energy. Perhaps that’s why I haven’t been to the gym in so long.

Photography and scrapbooking are peaceful splurges and I usually focus on them and try to give them about 7% (or one hour of my time) a few days a week.

When a co-worker calls an emergency meeting because of some problem you are having, you just subtracted about 1/14^th or 7% of my daily energy.

When I’m forced to work an hour of overtime because of other people’s lack of dedication, that’s another 7% of my daily energy.

Now try to read this correctly: when I’m busy and my energy is being used to accomplish valid tasks at work, I am happy.

When I complete my daily chores and I’ve used my energy to clean my home, I’m happy.

When I take the time and the energy to make a great dinner that my family enjoys, I’m happy.

But when you mess up my day and cost me 7% of my daily allotted energy, I’m not happy.

I want you to pay me back for my wasted energy.

If you mess up my energy allotment, I think you should have to take 3% of your energy and go pick up my lunch. Later, take another 3% of your energy and take my pants to the dry cleaners. Gee, just to be nice I think you should run over to the grocery store and pick me up some milk so that you can save me a 3% waste of time on my way home. I’ll give you money to pay for everything, I wouldn’t want you thinking this is “payment” for you messing up my day. However, you should have to spend your energy on me since I’m spending my energy fixing your mistakes.

Do you have an “energy crisis” in your life? I think it’s time to start taking control and telling people, “Alright, I’ll fix your mistake. But, you owe me 30 minutes of energy.”