My Brain On Work

Thanks for the suggestions I've gotten the last couple of days on things you might like to read about here. I've almost finished about how my cats came to live with me, but I need to go picture hunting for some kitten pictures before I post it. Oh, and dearest daughter of mine... I find it absolutely fascinating that you think your mom is such an interesting lady. We must get together over sparkling cider and grape juice so you can let me in on all the interesting facts, since I just don't see it. I guess my job is kind of interesting, yet I'm bound to keep silent about the most interesting things.

The guy I posted about in my previous post is a regular caller. He's not one of the crazy ones, as far as I can tell. But he is almost completely deaf. He has often complained about his neighbor kids and I do believe that they harass him on occasion or have harassed him in the past. He can not hear someone knocking on his door. Let me reword that... he can not hear the police knocking on his door... and we all know how loud a cop can knock on a door. They are specially trained in door knocking. For someone to play music loud enough for this guy to hear it, at 3am, while he's asleep, without his hearing aid in... I would be getting a lot more calls than just his.

The most frustrating thing about this guy is that I can't communicate with him. Our department is equipped with a machine that we can talk to deaf people on. It's called a TDD (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf). It's been around for many years. I would even go so far as to say it was the first true Instant Messenger. Why this man does not have one I cannot even begin to guess. But then again... I don't know the story of his life and how he came to call me last night. And because of that, it frustrates me that I was so put out about him calling... because I really was. I quickly classified him in the stupid people category. Sitting here at home, away from the work environment, I can clearly see he doesn't even come close to that, though.

In my mind, some 5 hours later, I think back to 3am and this is how I see it while sitting behind my home desk and not my work desk... He lives alone and he's deaf and he's had trouble with the mean kids being mean in the past. We've had a cold front blow through and the wind is kicking it up with a mighty force. He's asleep, yet wakes up because of the vibration of the wind. Could the wind's vibrations on his house be confused for the vibrations that loud music makes? I think it's a good possibility. So now I'm feeling horribly ugly about making immediate assumptions about this guy. 'Cause that's just how I roll.

I am not the same person at work as I am when I'm off the clock. There are pieces of me that go both ways (nooooo... not THOSE ways!), but they act differently depending on where I am. It's difficult to explain. I don't like to take personal phone calls at work. I also don't like to blog at work. Not because I'm afraid I'll get in trouble, but because I'm in the work frame of mind and I have a hard time being the person I am at home while I'm at work... yet on occasion I'll get a call and to help the person on the other end be more at ease, I will bring in pieces of my home self to help make the person feel as if I can relate to them and their situation. I am not conscious of these switches as they are happening.

I have hours upon hours to sit and think and because I am an obsessive compulsive self analyzer, I am able to see how different I am between here and work. I'm sure there's some sort of personality disorder that applies here, but I don't dislike how it all seems to work... except when I'm at home and I think about that other person, I find I don't have a lot in common with her... except the preference for solitude.