Responsibility, Patience, and Managing

(begin rant)

Lately, it seems like nearly everything and everyone is trying my patience. Whether it's cleaning up messes caused by incompetence and/or laziness or trying to fix things that aren't working as expected, it makes life harder and more stressful than if things were just to run smoothly as they should. Of course, there will be times when you hit an unexpected bump in a smooth road. The problem comes when the bumps are created by others. I can't blame the copy machine for not working properly, but I can blame one of my TAs for being lazy and not doing their job properly leading to a mess that I have to clean up.

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't like micro-managing people. I'm fine with giving instructions on what I expect them to do and as long as they get the job done without causing any problems for me, I could care less about how they accomplished it. And therein lies the problem.

Maybe my expectations are too high. However I am dealing solely with adults here, and I don't feel like asking someone to follow instructions and be responsible is asking too much, especially if those instructions aren't particularly detailed. If it is your job to be a lab TA and help the lab students, you should not be leaving the students alone in the lab for half of the time period. That is what an irresponsible adult who is too lazy to do their job does. I feel like I shouldn't have to explain to an adult (who has been a student and taken labs) that being in the lab room is part of the job of a lab TA. And the students aren't much better. They are all adults as well and should be capable of being responsible for the lab policies that are handed out to them. It is not my job to tell you what day your lab is. I gave you a website with that information. Go there and figure it out yourself. This is not high school. I am not your mother. Learn how to take on some responsibility and independence and learn how to do things by yourself.

And the problem does not end with a job or school. Half of my housemates are incapable of taking some initiative and cleaning the house when it is needed. And when I ask them to, they are incompetent at cleaning. If everyone else sees the large brown dirt patch on the bottom of the shower, then it's probably not clean and don't be surprised when I ask you to clean it again.

It all boils down to taking some responsibility and initiative and doing things right the first time. Sure it might take longer, but it will save me and you the extra time and headaches needed to correct a problem that could easily have been avoided in the first place if you had just taken the time to do your job properly. I am a pretty patient person, but I must say that the one thing that tests my patience more than anything else is the incompetence of other people.

(/end rant)