Management trades off on griping at me, particularly around a certain late, pre-dinner hour of the day. They have a well-orchestrated routine for expressing their individual grievances, making it a true team effort. N.Lo begins shouting because he’s starving, and consequently FED UP with the Kitchen Staff. I give him a cracker, silencing him for a few minutes, and K.Lo immediately picks up his sad song. Except I really have no idea what she’s saying, because I do not understand the Language of Whine.

Momentarily distracted by the dining room curtains and the game of Butterfly, K.Lo then hands off the baton to N.Lo, who has just finished his cracker. He doesn’t want more crackers, he wants grapes. Except I have to guess at that, using the intuition and other skills I possess as a Personal Assistant; since he doesn’t yet speak English, there is really no way to know. When he’s settled in with the grapes, K.Lo initiates her nightly demand for pasta, with the highly unreasonable deadline of NOW. Meantime, I’m trying to wrap up several end-of-shift tasks such as kitchen cleanup and dinner prep, with no hope of straightening up the bosses’ workspaces before my coworker gets home.

If I didn’t know better, I would think they were trying to sabotage my work performance at the cost of future raises and reviews. 

 

Innocent

 Tyranny exists under these innocent masks.

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3 peanuts:
  1. Ruby says:

    (What a cute picture of N.Lo!)

    Taking turns is only slightly worse than complaining at the same time, isn't it?!

  1. Ashley says:

    Check out www.giveavoice.com. It's a site where you can set up a picture-menu for babies or toddlers, so that instead of guessing what food they want, you can show them the menu and they'll point to it. I babysit for the lady who came up with this idea, and though her kids are older now, this was SUCH a help when they were little! It "gives a voice" to babies who aren't talking yet. Hope this helps with N.Lo!

  1. penelope says:

    Huh! That site is cool! N.Lo can point, that's for sure. I'm going to have to try it out!