The Peak of Luxury during Weekends

To wake up and read a couple of pages from a book, or to watch a movie or an episode from your favorite series.

And then, to go back to sleep.

The Peak of Luxury

 

Morning. I look out of the window to the haze so dense that it could almost be spread on bread, like the cheese in the famous TV spot. I squinted my eyes, trying to see if it started raining.

And that’s when the realization dawned on me. The peak of luxury is to be able to sit at home while outside is raining.

Adventures … at the Romanian Post Office

You know me, I am the one with the adventures. I keep gathering and gathering them, and sometimes I even put them in writing.

A few months ago, a friend of mine wrote about how she made the decision of never using again the services of the Romanian Post Office. And I agreed with her on that. Mostly, in hindsight of what had happened to me a few weeks before her post.

Last summer, I was on holiday through the country (needless to mention that I have gathered enough material for the continuation of the Adventures of tourists). We arrived in Timisoara and we were enchanted to see it looked more beautiful than it did nine years ago.

I wanted to buy some postcards with main sights from Timisoara and to send them in Romania and abroad. Every souvenirs shop or bookshop I entered, that sold postcards, did not also sell stamps. Everyone directed me to the Romanian Post Office. So I did not buy postcards and decided that I would buy them all, postcards and stamps, from a post office. I must admit that I must have got this idea (of buying from the same place stamps and postcards) from my trips abroad where I was able to do it (even though not even today did the Romanian Post Office delivered to Cluj-Napoca a postcard that I had sent last year from Madrid).

Finally, I was able to find a post office, and the queue outside was not that long. Two girls were in front of me so I waited patiently for my turn. Another girl made the queue behind me and no sooner than one client exited the office that she went for it and cut the queue and entered the office. Probably, because all of us were wearing masks, she thought no one would dare to open their mouths. I did not. That’s also because the two girls in front of me took the situation in their own hands and went after her and pulled her out. When she exited, accompanied by the two girls, there was a certain smile on her face, like she had just received flowers. That got me thinking that this was not her first attempt to cutting a queue.

When it was my turn, I entered and went straight to the office to my right, where I saw from the outside that everyone stopped. I asked for stamps, but the lady there brutally intervened and sent me to another office, mentioning that she was very busy and that all the people standing outside should know better than to keep disturbing her. I wanted to make a suggestion and tell her that she could place a note in front of her office and thus making it easier for her and the clients, but I reckoned from the tone she used that she knew better.

I advanced towards the other office and asked for stamps for Romania and France. A picture hang next to the office, showing a POS and encouraging payment by card. That’s good, I told myself. I also asked for postcards of Timisoara. The lady looked at me confused and told me that they do not sell such things. I took out the card to make the payment but she told me that stamps cannot be paid by card, only cash. Probably is the mobility feature that stands in the way, I told myself. So, here I was, leaving Timisoara with no postcards, but with stamps.

The ugly truth

I am committed to telling things as they are. You already know that about me, having read this blog.

Now, you’ll find few people mention this. But I think it’s a rather sore point and it should be dealt with. Fact: some people will set you back.

Oh, I’ve been there. And it is so frustrating – especially to me, since I’m proactive by nature and tend to plan ahead and consider milestones and possible situations that may set me back and how to address them so that my deadline is kept.

It’s true some people do not get the importance of deadline. You could explain and explain and they still could not get it. Some lack empathy and thus no matter how well you state your reasons, you won’t get that reaction from them – to send the information you need before the deadline is done.

Others simply believe there’s no importance to observing a deadline. So what if you’re past it?! At least you have delivered something.

Well, I can tell from my experience, dealing with this kind of people will demotivate you, stress you out and make you lose confidence in you and the success of your project. The ideal situation would be to not work with them.

But when you have no choice, you have to find solutions in order to make it work.

Here’s how I made it work.

I had this collaborator and it was absolutely a nightmare to work with. She would call me daily and have her monologues and excuses thrown at me, to no end result.

I am a really pragmatic person and I do not like to sit around and chat just for the sake of it. Conclusions must be drawn and actions planned, and never-ending meetings and calls without these are absolutely futile. 

Anyway, after a certain point I realized that she would never change and I was the one in charge if I wanted things to turn out differently with the project. One day she had called me 3 times and when I calculated the time that I spent listening (because I almost never got the chance to speak), I saw that I wasted three hours from my working day listening to a senseless monologue.

So I started dodging her calls and insisting on the fact that she should only call me if there was something urgent.

It was hard at first, but she finally got it. But that was not enough, of course, to finish the project in time. Thus, I talked with the other collaborators to the project and agreed upon the following action: since she was the only one not complying with the deadline, while the rest of us did, there was only one solution – to set a different deadline for her. And we did. Her deadline would be a week before ours. And it worked. And even though she usually sent the information after the expiration of her deadline, we would always manage to finish our project in time.

Well, some may judge the fairness of this trick. But it’s just it, a trick to help deliver a project. The thing is to always make sure your collaborators know about the special deadline so that they won’t give you away and compromise the delivery of the project.

The holiday spirit

When I go on holiday, I like to buy tea, sweets and books. This way, I get to keep the holiday spirit even when I am back.

It’s the case for this book that I bought this summer from the town of Drobeta Turnu Severin in a small but full of books bookshop. When I look at it now it reminds of a particular moment I shared with the shop assistant.

(The Psychology of Stupidity)

I took it from the shelf and went to the counter.

The shop assistant: Oh. It’s quite expensive this book. But then again, stupidity has its heavy price, too.

And so we started laughing.

Yes, that’s right.

 

Simple words, but so, oh, so powerful. They embody acceptance and motivate the speaker to continue with one’s narration. When one feels understood, one is getting closer to learning about what is happening, what one feels, how one feels and even to realize what should be done next.

If you do not believe me, try taking a step back from your emotions on the day you feel you’ve been wrongfully treated and still have the chance to tell somebody about it. You will notice the healing effect of those three words.

Traditions

They say that creative people easily develop obsessions. And this could be noticed in their quirks, routines, in the way they organize their desks (to the right the things to do and to the left the things that were already solved – yep, it would be funny to see me in action, fluttering pieces of paper from one side to the other) or the drinks they have (tea, coffee, rum, sangria, wine, cider, beer) and at what time.

If it was not clear enough, the text above was meant to confirm it. Yes, we develop obsessions. For example, one such obsession of mine is popcorn. No matter where life took me (within Romania, Germany or Russia), the craving for popcorn was always on the priorities list.  

Being the traditions keeper that I am, especially when it comes to popcorn, that was not always an easy task – finding the corn kernels because I like my popcorn made in the tin kettle. So you must know that I was really pleased with my recent discovery on the box of a brand of corn kernels the recipe to making the traditional popcorn.

Sometimes I wonder how many people are there left in the world making their popcorn in the tin kettle. And I do like to believe that if corn kernels are still for sale in shops, then not everyone has turned to microwave for their popcorn.

Well, this is to you, my friends! And to properly celebrate you, I am going to make popcorn in my tin kettle.

Crunch-Crunch