Wednesday, March 16, 2016

In which Primo ignores the critical path and our getting ready to go to our college reunion is far more stressful than it needs to be

Primo and I are trying to get ready to leave for Houston tomorrow for our class reunion. The good news is that he and some buyers agreed in principle to the sale of his mom and dad's house. The bad news is that

1. The realtor sent, at 5 p.m., 17 pages of documents that Primo needs to sign and return re: the sale of the house
2. Primo has not packed at all and we have a 10:00 a.m. flight tomorrow morning.

Our conversation earlier today:

Primo: How come you never have to stay up all night to get things done?
Me: Because I plan.
Primo: How can that happen?
Me: Because I define the critical path and if I have things to do, I do not go to political events or to sing karaoke.
Later:
Me: I am going to put those bratwurst in the freezer.
Primo: Why don't you just do it later? You don't have to do it now.
Me: May I refer you to Exhibit A?



As in, Primo always waits until the last minute to do stuff because he assumes nothing will ever come up.

And yet, things come up.

Like the house sells after just nine days on the market.

This is good news. But Primo is all stressed out and he is the Typhoid Mary of stress, which means there is stress all over our house.

All I want to do is to pack (I have had everything planned since this weekend) and go to bed.

Anyhow - today is the ten-year anniversary of our meeting. I went to our college reunion, thinking I might find a Used Husband. (Actually, I was still sort of involved with the Moroccan Millionaire, or at least that was the story I was giving to my classmates, as I had just been laid off from my job and had neither husband nor children to give me status.)



Gold Digger
13 mins
If I had not responded rudely to Primo ten years ago today, telling him I was not waving at him when he walked into the reunion party with Sam and Sam'sWife, I might not be living in a place with snow today.
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SusanSam'sWife and Debbie like this.
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Sam You and Primo are one of my two matchmaking successes. That puts my overall hit rate at something less than 5%.
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Ray So...?
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Gold Digger So far, so good, but I need more data before I commit.
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Gary It's snowing today?
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Gold Digger No. But in general.
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6 comments:

  1. As I told my children -
    Do it when you know you have the time.
    Don't wait and hope you have the time.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I can't handle that kind of brinksmanship - I have check everything off my list well in advance! I'd think an engineer would plan everything painstakingly well ahead of time...unless the engineer has confidence he can pull it off when the critical deadline is reached? (I am getting palpitations just thinking about this.)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Catherine from CanadaThursday, March 17, 2016

    Wait. What?
    I thought engineer=obsessive planner.
    I mean, how can it not? If you don't have a plan, how can you know you're "doing it right"?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ask Primo if he was designing a chair that had to be rated to hold up to 300 lbs, would he really design one that would just exactly hold 300 lbs, and break at 301 (meaning whenever anyone close to that sat down in it), or should a "300-lb rating" mean that it should withstand at least 150-200% of that? (If he's an EE, the same could apply to amperage ratings....I think. I know UL requires some resiliency.)

    Now ask him to apply it to scheduling. Consider time (or electricity) as weight. Once you cross the limiting threshold, your work is completely negated.

    I have trained myself to take action on something when I think of it, because if I don't I will often not take care of it adequately. Either I'll jump up and do it then, or make some kind of note or reminder. If I have to bring something to work in the morning, chances are I'll be in the car or at work before I remember, so I hang my work badge on the inside doorknob of the front door. That's my string around my finger, and I can't miss it.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Primo sounds exactly like my husband. I start packing days in advance, while he waits until the hour before we need to leave to go to the airport.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Primo sounds exactly like my husband. I start packing days in advance, while he waits until the hour before we need to leave to go to the airport.

    ReplyDelete