This week: Is Silence Golden? Edited by: Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline  
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It is said that silence is golden, but is this truly the case? Or is it better to speak out? Are you the type who speaks out or who remains quiet? Does this work for you?
This week's Action/Adventure Newsletter is all about expressing one's feelings. And about terrible builders and painters...
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Sometimes I have to bite my tongue. Not literally: that would be painful and inadvisable. Just, it’s said that silence is golden, and then there’s the saying that if you don’t have anything nice to say you shouldn’t say anything at all, and I am not that keen on those people who boast that ‘I say it as I see it’ as they are often terribly unkind, so I zip it. Which leads to my mind keeping me awake later that night, running through what could have, and perhaps should have happened had I said what I wanted to say. Being polite is one thing; being a timid person is another.
For more than a month now I’ve sat here in a mess of building work and, frankly, it’s more chaotic than it ought to be. Many a morning I sit here, waiting for this person or that person who said they’d show up and then never do. There’s a tendency towards not doing things properly that I don’t understand. The thought may be that it means more work being necessary in the future, which would mean more money, but quite why they’d think I’d want them to do it when they made a mess of it in the first place I don’t know… I’ve pointed out problems here and there, reminded them of what was required, but all that it’s resulted in is being talked down at. So I bit my tongue, always eager to avoid conflict. Only to feel disrespected and frustrated.
Today I decided that enough was enough. The painter said he’d start last week Tuesday and didn’t show. I was unable to reach him until Thursday. He had some things to do Friday and Monday, but he was going to be here this morning, definitely, bright and early. At 11:30 I got him on the phone and he said that he was busy today, and had a couple of jobs elsewhere tomorrow and Thursday, so Friday. Perhaps. No apology. Nothing. Guess who won’t be working here anymore?
I wasn’t rude. I’d simply had enough. Sometimes silence isn’t golden. Not if it means people taking advantage of your politeness or timidity.
Of course, builders and painters are having a good time of it at the moment. All those jobs left undone during the height of the pandemic are now wanting doing, and it must be tempting to pick up this job and that job and if people don’t like it, so what? I’ll be painting my own walls and woodwork now; not everyone can do so. I am not sure yet what to do with the hole the builder left in my floor. Or the lock that they messed up so that it no longer actually locks. Or the curtain rail that they screwed in incorrectly, leading it to crash down in the middle of the night. Looks like they did a bad job drilling the holes. The joys…
If you’re like me, keeping silent when being treated poorly, I encourage you to take that first step in sticking up for yourself, too. I may not have gotten very far. I may only have made more work for myself. But at least I said something. I took action. I have to admit that it feels good.
That doesn’t mean that it’s always best to say something. Silence is golden does apply in some cases. When the mother of a newborn asks me if their child isn’t the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen I am not going to tell her that all babies pretty much look the same to me. Yes! They’re a beautiful baby! It doesn’t hurt anyone to agree. It would cause unnecessary harm to disagree.
Just make sure, though, that you’re not so busy avoiding any upset in others that you end up upsetting yourself, or doing yourself wrong. You matter.
Kitti the Red-Nosed Feline
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Action/Adventure: August 25, 2021 Issue [#10950]
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