The Poetry of Anne Maren-Hogan

“I can feel the grit of dust and crunch of downed cornstalks in these poems.  They are not nostalgic ditties, but instead are strong songs, often in a haunting minor key, that remove me to a time when many footsteps, from many families, from many homes, sounded on the Midwestern farm scape.”

Timothy Fay  (taken from  the back cover of Anne’s book of poetry)

Anne and Sam  with the Mrs and I  March 23 2013

I was introduced to Anne Maren-Hogan’s book of poetry this past November by her nephew Chris.

I would be the first to admit I am not a big reader of poetry….which makes what happened to me all the more powerful.

I can still remember sitting in Ms Burns 7th grade class reading “Jonathan Livingston Seagull. “

I got the impression something deep and profound was  going on in that story, but it was  beyond me.

(The same thing happened in Mr Newland’s slide rule class…..I felt  over my head and could not swim)

NEVER  wanting  to find  myself in that sort of discussion setting again.

Flash forward 40 year .

Chris  hands me a little book of poetry @ coffee break written by his aunt Anne. (Chris works with me)

In my mind, I’m thinking...oh/ no/  if I take it, he’s going to ask me later what I think…?

I will be exposed for the uncultured farm boy that I am.

I took the book.

I inhaled the book.

I discovered a writer that drew me in.

She wrote about growing up in a large farm family , not too many miles from me.

Here’ another quote from the back of the book:

“With narrative grace and keen insight, Anne Maren-Hogan celebrates the strength and perseverance of women.  Spanning two decades, the poems in The Farmers Wake offer a thoughtful meditation on family, place and culture.   The poems move beyond a chronicle of farm lief in the Midwest to remind us all of the very human connections we share with each other and this earth.  The landscape in these poems may be harsh and isolated, but the writing is rich and rewarding: stitching it all together with this certainty/ of leaving and returning as  Maren-Hogan writes in “Lifting My Eyes”  Pat Riviere-Seel

_______________________________

Anne and her husband Sam were back in the area this past week visiting family.

I’d built a multipurpose addition to our shop this Fall and had been wanting to do a “German Building dedication”

Last Saturday night, was the dedication.

Anne and Sam, joined us for a night of poetry/ music and mirth.

I asked Anne,  if she cared if I included one of her poem on this post.  So I did get her blessing.

I intended to include my favorite poem titled The Farmer’s Wake”

(It is about her dad’s wake)

I’ve had a change of heart.

I’m going to hold off  because  I feel like she  has shared something with us very precious and sacred.

A  glimpse into her heart.

I will instead give you a link to her book of poetry, so you could have your own copy.

_____________________

In case you stumble across this post later Anne, I just want to say  thank you again for  sharing your heart, both in your poems and for actually coming and reading them aloud .

I am a wealthy man.  DM

German building dedication

Lead carpenter (me) nailing the evergreen branch to the gable. 

“Also” Did he just say “also”????

A pit you don’t want to fall into

Jim  told  with  me  yesterday  he had been thinking about  the things I’d shared with him  the week before.

“What things?”  I asked with a smirk,   “What  did I tell you? “

(That’s one of the beautiful things about short term memory loss….every day is a new day)

He reminded me I   had vented some  anger  frustration  in the realm of relationships.  I had been  feeling devalued.

(Last week’s blog post came out of that stuff) 

Well, He said, “I thought more about it  and by the middle of the week  I  was also battling self pity.”

“also”…did he just say “also”?

Self pity is  what Junior High girls do, right????

_________________________________

After my conversation with Jim  I decided to look up the definition for self-pity:

     Psychiatrists have an interesting name for people who habitually indulge in self-pity–it’s “injustice collector.” These are the folks who are constantly dwelling on their hurts and hardships – whether real or imagined – and they enjoy thinking about them and talking about them. They lovingly collect and number each and every offense that others commit against them, and they search out people who will sympathize with them and commiserate with them. All this keeps the focus on themselves, which is what they want most.”

Dang, some of that felt a little too close to home.

That is the last thing I want rolling around in my brain!

I”m beginning to  think self pity is a lot more common than I realized.

I’ve been calling it other things  like ” being in a funk”,  “being down” “discouraged” “feeling rejected” feeling down”

My wife’s  daily devotional  had a warning about self pity this past Saturday:

“Be on guard against the pit of self pity.

  When you are weary or unwell, this demonic trap is the greatest danger you face.

  Don’t even go near the edge of the pit. 

Its edges crumble easily, and before you know it, you are on the way down. 

It is ever so much harder to get out of the pit than to keep a safe distance from it, 

That is why I tell you to be on guard.            

   from   “Jesus Calling”     

Musing on Friendship

      “I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When they are real, they are not glass threads or frost work, but the solidest thing we know.”         Emerson

_______________________________________

      This morning I found myself struggling with two “friendships.”

I was feeling rejected and slighted.

It wasn’t until this afternoon that I finally got past being stuck.

I realized ( yet again) that I was reading more into a certain  relationship  than I should.

Just because I feel a certain connection with another person doesn’t mean they feel the same way towards me.

      Quick word picture.

      We have an apple orchard.

Every  June, after the bees are done doing their thing  and the apples begin to form, there comes a point in the maturing process where the apple tree will shed (or thin) a certain percentage of the apples that have begun to mature.

Newly forming  apples

They just drop on the ground.

I’d guess 20 % fall off the tree @ this point.

I used to think that was such a waste.

The truth is,  that thinning then enables the tree to focus it’s energy on the remaining apples…Less apples but the ones that remain are substantial.

It dawned on me a couple of years ago, that is a perfect word picture when it comes to the people and relationships that come along in my life.  Lots of small superficial relationships begin..even here in the blogging world..but check back in a year or two and you’ll discover, many of them will  not continue.

     I get into trouble when I  think there is more to a relationship than there is….

     It takes TIME for relationships to form (see below)

You’ve probably heard  if we have just one or two deep long term friendships we should count ourselves blessed.

I used to think I was the exception to that statement, and could easily maintain several dozen deep meaningful relationships at the same time.

I know now, that is not reality.

It takes time and energy to keep, and maintain  deep friendships and low and behold Emerson was right .

         So tonight, I re-post this portion of Emerson’s musing on friendship for myself.

   I also want to toast  the   friendships in my life that have made it past the “thinning” process…

    Here’s that portion of Emerson’s essay that I love….

   

      “Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fibre of the human heart. The laws of friendship are austere and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature and of morals. But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a sudden sweetness. We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers and many winters must ripen.”

     Bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk, in which a delicate organization is protected from premature ripening. It would be lost if it knew itself before any of the best souls were yet ripe enough to know and own it. Respect the naturlangsamkeit which hardens the ruby in a million years, and works in duration.”

Naturlangsamkeit: a German word for a slow process of ripening

In other words, friendships take time to ripen…I  can’t  hurry the process….!!!!!!!

      “There are two elements that go to the composition of friendship, each so sovereign that I can detect no superiority in either, no reason why either should be first named. One is Truth. A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal, that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness .”

       “We parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds……

     “The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity (Magnanimous: generous in forgiving) and trust”.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

______________________________

Tell me about a time you got  caught in the trap of “expectations” in a relationship   ie.  maybe you invited them to something and they never came or communicated, you were going through a tough time, and  people you thought would be there weren’t and  vice versa …Don’t tell me I’m not the only person who has ever made that boo-boo

“You can sit by me if you like….”

“You can sit by me if you like,” Jarret said to me at lunch today

“Do you know why I asked you to sit by me?”, he asked.

“No, Why do you ask me to sit by you?” I replied.

“Because I like you! “he said with a shy smile.

Jarret is 4 years old.

He has been asking me to sit by him now for the past three weeks.

Our crew is building a shop at their farm.

The family  has  invited us in for  lunch  almost every day we’ve been on the job.

When I sit down at their  14 ft farm table  I think,...this is what it must have felt like to be a part of a large threshing crew..

Grant Wood’s Dinner For Threshers

People with a real gift of hospitality are a dying breed.

Even here in Iowa.

It’s one thing to invite a few close friends over for  lunch once in a while..

I scratch your back, you scratch mine..right?

Well, …it’s a completely different ball game to cook lunch for  a construction crew of 4 , 5 days a week, for the better part of a month.

Today lasagna  was on the menu

Yesterday I thought  Jarret’s mom had asked if I wanted a piece of “cheese cake” for desert?
“Yummy I said..I love cheese cake…!

“No” she replied, I said  “sheet cake”

my bad.

Well, today, guess what we had for desert?

Cheese cake topped with a blueberry filling.

I had to pry the guys away from the table today….

They did not want to go back to work.

John said it was the best tasting lasagna he’d ever had.

While I’m thinking about it..here’s a recent crew photo

Crew photo

I work with a great bunch of guys.

The morale on this crew is second to none.

Nothing worse than working around someone with a bad attitude.

At this point in my life, when I’m looking to hire someone, the numero uno thing I am looking for is

ATTITUDE.

I don’t care if you don’t know how to properly hold a hammer or read a tape measure.

I can teach you those things.

What I really detest is a whiner or someone with a dark cloud following them around.

I am really enjoying  the guys   that is helping me out this Winter.

As I write this, I feel like I’m starting to fade….4:30 AM comes pretty early

Jarret’s comments were still rolling around in my head when I got home from work, and I wanted to tell you about it…

Yea, I’m assuming I have a couple of regular readers 

There is just something serendipitous about a 4 year old   requesting that I be his lunch buddy 3 weeks in a row.

I am a rich man.

I will miss Jarret when the job is done…

Heck, I will miss the whole family…

Here is a picture of the shop we’ve been working on:

End view of shop

One last thing before I sign off…

Did you know what the word Hospitality literally means?

Hospitality:  Lover of strangers

I believe it is more caught than taught…

Jarret is growing up in a home where it is being modeled in a powerful way….

If I were a betting man, someday when he has a home of his own, he will also know how it’s done….

Is there anyone in your life, with the gift of hospitality?  Tell me about them.

Johnny

Friend of mine purchased an old  building, asked if I could help  install a patio door 20 feet up, through an  exterior  wall, covered with Stucco.

(stucco = concrete)

I came prepared.  Brought the  cement saw with a diamond blade.

a handful of new sawzall blades. (they look like sharp steak knives…hold on to that detail)

and two quarts of coffee.

Must have coffee.

My friend had a young man in his early 30′s there to help.

His name was Johnny..

He was built  like a tank.  chiseled,  and had  this hard stoic look in his eyes..

He looked like he belonged  in a  gang.

Construction types  remind me of my dad’s roosters….

Sometimes  I pick up an undercurrent of circling  and sizing  each other up…  like roosters getting ready to spar

Johnny  and I were was no exception.

When I looked at the 4 sections of rickety  scaffolding set up for us to work on, it creeped me out..I told Johnny  I was allergic to heights.   (I really do hate heights btw)

“What???” he said with a sneer ,  “I thought you were  the carpenter, and  you’re telling me you are afraid of heights?”

  “Yep” I  said with a smirk.    Now he really didn’t know what to do with me…

I love to banter w/ tough guys   and soften them up…poke holes in their machismo.

It took me less that   30 minutes  working along Johnny to soften him up ..

He  went from questioning my sanity to thinking I was (his words, not mine  a “Master”).

I jumped on the section of scaffolding below Johnny,  asked him to hand me  the  sawzall.  He let it down by the chord, (it wasn’t running, but the 6 inch  blade was sticking down as he swung it to me).

It slid deeply into my wrist .  I took one look at the wound and  said, “Johnny, I need to go  to the hospital” . 

Johnny said, “You’re kidd’n right?”   “No,  I said,  “I just got stabbed, and need to go to the hospital NOW!” 

           He felt terrible.  “It would be one thing, if you were just some “grunt”, but you are like a “Master” ” he moaned.

Hour and 1/2,  $750.00 later I was back on  the job,  (arm wrapped  w/ 5 stitches)

I tried to supervise when we got back, but it was taking forever.

I  grabbed the cement saw and  went back to work.

  “Man, you are one bad #*&, he said.     

If he only knew.

..pardon the sweat… that’s me showing off

it’s a little trick I know….

you  touch your nose with a 10 pound sledge

very carefully

______________________________________________

Footnote. those of you that are long time readers may remember this post..It was buried in the archives.

No more shame

“I’ve thought about every word you said,” Dan told me on Friday….and the shame is gone…completely gone. I haven’t felt this light and free in years.“

___________________________________________

End of November I (Douglas)  spent an extended weekend high in the mountains of Colorado at a men’s retreat working through some issues.   I wasn’t sure quite what to expect as I got there, I told someone later, I felt like I was going to have a “spiritual colonoscopy”

Colon cancer runs in our family, so I’ve had the “opportunity” to be scoped on more than one occasion. Once you hit 50, it’s recommended everyone get’s one of these, but if you’re like most chickens (I mean people)  we put it off and put it off…the thing is, if you catch the polyps early it is a very treatable cancer..the problem comes when you wait….

So too, in life,  personal  issues that are ignored usually don’t  just magically go away…they tend to grow and fester…so early on in our marriage, when  I found myself completely stuck and confused,  at a point of desperation, I reached out for help.  It taught me a valuable lesson.  Why  should I  spend months (or years)  struggling with the same old crap  when an answer may be forthcoming in  a 60 minute conversation if I have the gut’s and I’m humble enough to say “I’m stuck, I have a problem…can  you help?”

This stuff was never modeled for me growing up.  I’ve had to learn it the hard way.

So, over the years in our marriage, and through the turbulent teenage years, we’ve proactively sought out help, whenever it became obvious, we were over my heads…after the 2nd or 3rd issue, it isn’t really that much different from  making an appointment to see the dentist if you have a toothache….

I am not at liberty at the present to talk about specifics..there may come a day in the not too distant future where I will write about it but not yet…    Some long standing, buried, pain has been  coming to light this Summer and Fall, and I decided to step up to the plate and deal with it head on…hence my trip to Colorado.

Most of us have painful “stuff” in  our lives no one else knows about…I don’t have to list it here…if you have it, then you know what I’m talking about.  Well, stop for just a second and try to imagine the sting of that pain being gone…not just suppressed but gone…..

After my trip to Colorado,   I  happened to tell Dan about some of the radical  emotional freedom I was  experiencing…I wasn’t  even aware of the hurts in his life…he trusted me enough to tell me his story He told me he had been having flash backs and night mares…dark shameful memories had dogged him for years…. I listened, and encouraged him…and hadn’t thought any more about our conversation..then he told me on Friday,  “I’ve thought about every word you said,”….and the shame is gone…completely gone. I haven’t felt this light and free in years.“

I have no idea who may stumble across this particular blog post at some point.  God has an amazing way of allowing people’s paths to cross in the most serendipitous fashions….anyway, if you’re reading this and are at a broken stuck place in your life and need someone to talk to…(or are not there currently but have something to add to this conversation, let me know)

Time to get moving.  Sincerely,   DM

 

If you looked into my eyes…

If you would have looked into my eyes two weeks ago,  and had the fortitude to lock eyes with me for more than a few seconds, you would have seen brokenness and pain.

Our eyes really are windows to our soul.

I discovered that truth on a whole new level last weekend.

I need to back up just a little…..

A few of you who know me personally, know that I have not been able to cry since  I was 16 . (I’m currently  54)

I can pinpoint the  day it happened.

My brother and I were  wrestling and it went from a good natured match to an all out fight.  He kicked my butt.  To make matters worse, he was a year younger  and it happened in the presence of my mom and dad.

I wept.

I can still remember the shame and humiliation.  I swore in my heart I would NEVER  Ever, experience that sort of thing again.

NEVER.

Well, unbeknownst to me, somehow, deep within the recesses of my soul, I flipped a switch and could no longer cry.  Only once in the 38 years since do I remember weeping…I won’t go into that now, just to say, it was in the midst of some intense emotional pain.

So last weekend during the course of a men’s conference, one of the things we covered was the fact that all of us have areas in our hearts of brokenness and shame. …

Things  people have said to us.  (or not)

Things we’ve intentionally done that nobody knows except us.

Broken relationships.

Abuse

Physical things about ourselves we are ashamed of.

it might even be your name….  the list is endless, but the results  are still the same.   We begin to  carry around this ever increasing load of hurt and shame.

I was able to identify 4 very specific hurts last weekend.

That situation with my brother.

Secondly, a vague but very real, dislike for how I looked as a youngster growing up:

My name if you can believe that..

and finally, on a very personal note, the fact that I was a very late bloomer…didn’t physically mature into late into my senior year of high school.   The shame and embarrassment of those years in high school  really did a number on my self esteem.  Gym class was Hell.  Yep, I was a runt all through high school.  Not the last one picked when we chose teams.but one of the last.

All of it is  bull shit (that’s german for garbage) .

Another word picture…

Our hearts are full of  cracks. They leak like a sieve….and until those  hurts are brought into the open and addressed, we will  attempt to fill those cracks with anything that  gives  temporary relief.  Food, shopping, sex, alcohol, people,  $, our jobs, blogging, e-mail, face book, video games, hobbies taken to excess, etc.

None of it lasts.  Before long,  I’m  looking for another fix.

The food addict, is  no different than the shop-a-haulic or the sex addict.  All three of them are dealing with the same crap, just going about it in different ways.

If someone cared enough to look to look  deeply into our eyes…no sunglasses on …. they would see the pain.

To make a long story short, God touched all 4 of those hurts in a very specific way.

I no longer feel their weight.

I look @ that picture of my younger self and like what I see. I LOVE my given name,  (my real name isn’t Doug btw/ it’s Douglas) I am in touch with my emotions…(I wept at least 4 or 5 times last weekend) and finally, I’m OK with being a late bloomer. I suspect it  saved me from a lot of heartache.

I’m sure  there are  probably still  pockets of brokenness to discover, but for now,  I don’t have the same compulsions to check e-mail, face book , or even blog…all ways I think I was trying to connect with people in a way to satisfy the longings in my heart.

Thanks for checking in.    DM

My rendezvous with a pumpkin beer

On Thursday, Jason asked me if I would  drink a pumpkin beer with him after work the next day?

While I am not a “tea-teetotaler” my alcoholic consumption in a  year is probably less than   4 or 5 drinks….

and then to clinch the deal he adds, “By the way,  there’s a quote on the bottle by Thoreau about pumpkins, and it IS pumpkin season “

“What the heck I told him...bring me one…..”

So Friday after work I had my first pumpkin beer.

The taste  wasn’t half bad/ pretty mellow as far as beers go…about 1/3 of the way into the bottle he tells me…“By the  way, this stuff has an 8% alcohol content in it, so it has more “kick”than a regular beer…

Boy he wasn’t kidding…

Within a couple of minutes  I was feeling no pain. It took a good 2 hours before the effects wore off.

I haven’t had a hangover in 30 years..don’t miss those days one bit.

Looking back, the  turning point for me, came when I began dating my future wife.   We were out for pizza one night…I looked across the table at her and thought, Boy ,she would probably drop me like a hot potato if she knew some of the stuff I was doing…..

The decision was  simple…I walked away from the booze, the weed and the little diet pills and never looked back.

Today my drink of choice is coffee.

Starbucks French Roast if you’re looking for any gift ideas

It’s  legal, affordable and I don’t wake up with a splitting headache.

Our kids grew up in a home where heavy drinking was not the norm.  There was  too much heartache in both of our families related to alcohol.  I was telling my wife about the pumpkin beer Saturday night…told her  how thankful I was she rarely drinks…

I am of the persuasion there is nothing wrong with an occasional drink.

The issue for me is control.

I’m completely convinced the bible does not teach total abstinence.  You have to really do some linguistical   contortions to come to that conclusion.

On the other hand, alcohol is so subtle in its ability to enslave a person.   I’ve watched it happen to at least three people near and dear to me.

Early in our marriage wife and I made a decision to not drink  unless the other person was there or  on rare occasion, we were at some kind of family gathering.

We were both on the same page with that idea….I’m not talking about being sticks in the mud, I’m talking about setting up simple boundaries so as not to get sucked into something you’d regret later…

I’m in construction.  Stopping @ the bar on the way home at the end of a long day was what we did.

Before I was married I did it regularly.

Now, not a chance.

I can still remember sitting in The Office  watching Dave, a family friend  make lovey-dovey eyes with  some young lady 1/2 his age.  Pretty sure it was someone from work.  He had no idea I was there…his wife was a good friend of my mom…..

I told Jason on Friday,  when I’m out  in public, the last thing I want to be is fuzzy headed.  I want to be on my game.

I was telling my 25 yr old son about all of this yesterday….I told him, there is a part of me that would love to make my own wine, or even moonshine for that matter.  I am intrigued by the whole  fermentation process.  My grandpa even gave me the family recipe for moonshine. My concern is, I would like the stuff.

 

The voice in my head

Not to worry,  I’m not really hearing voices (yet)

As I was helping my wife clean this morning I had  negative   emotions dogging my every step.

When I stopped long enough  to understand what and why  I was feeling this way, I  couldn’t do it.

All the dark  thoughts popped back in their holes like moles in a mole game.

It  took me ten minutes  to put a label on what I was feeling.

“Disapproval”

I was feeling the emotions of disapproval

Disapproval: criticize.  to think (something) wrong  censure or condemn in opinion. 

(the opposite of  feeling like someone was giving me their blessing)

My wife had been asked to  tidy up a  senior housing apartment for a friend who was moving her mom to Seattle this week.

I offered to help out because my morning had suddenly freed up.

That sounds simple enough don’t you think?

Help wife with cleaning =  showing her love.

For the first 30 minutes I battled these dark negative feelings…

“What am I doing taking time off cleaning out a frig????

”   I  should be on the job working!!!!”

On and on like a broken record….

I am self employed…which means I can call my own hours.

I am between projects this morning/ the job I had hoped to do today was not ready so if I wasn’t helping my wife out, I would be home puttering in the shop/ picking apples/ etc.  no big deal breakers there

So where do these negative feelings come from?

They rob me of joy and energy like a short on a battery.

Instead of feeling like I am doing something good to encourage my wife, I am feeling like “someone” would disprove of what I am doing with my time.

Who in the heck is this “someone ” anyway???

I’d like to tell them to zip it, because I didn’t ask for their opinion

______________________________________-

These are not life and death issues

I hesitate to even write about them,  but  these low-grade negative feelings  rob me of my  peace of mind just as effectively as the bigger stuff.

Do I battle this stuff all the time? nada

I can take a nap  with the best of them pretty much  anytime the opportunity presents itself.

It wasn’t always that way.

For the first  several years after I got married and moved away from the farm, I battled the negative feelings….

even after I was a 1000 miles from home , I could feel  that pressure to be productive.

Not any more.

So it kind of takes me by surprise to discover there are still a few old  moles  tunneling around the recesses of my mind.

I’m kind of optimistic at this moment.

Whenever I can catch this sort of thing and drag it into the open, into the light, it has a way of breaking the power  of it.

Negative thoughts thrive in darkness.

They thrive in secrecy.

If you’re batting some deep dark  thing right now,

find someone safe,

someone you trust and share it with them.

If you don’t know anyone, feel free to tell me.

Leave me a comment and I’ll get back to you one on one.

I am pretty much  unflappable.

I don’t have to know who you are.  In fact, I don’t want to know.

That isn’t the point.

Nobody should have to carry dark things by themselves.

We are not designed to.

You’ll have to excuse me now while I take a nap. DM

knowing when to get angry

“You have to learn what’s worth getting angry about.”  Lester said to me  in his gentle way.

I was 16 years old, had just unleashed a string of profanities.

That conversation took place almost 40 years ago and  I can STILL remember it to this day.

I remember thinking, “You know, he’s right.  Nobody pays too much attention to me now when I get mad.  That can’t be good.”

Les  reminded me of Ben Franklin….

retired farmer,

bib overhauls,

in his 60′s.

Here’s an early crew photo…Lester is in the middle and I’m to his right:

Work crew from back in the day.  We had just finished pouring a basement wall.

And yes, that was a can of Old Mill in my hand.

________________________________________

These days, it does take a lot more to light the fire.

The fuse got lit on Tuesday.

I’m temporarily working with another construction company…

My work load had slowed up, and this crew needed some extra help.

Win win

Tuesday night  on the way home, my cell phone rang..it was the owner of the construction company…He’d just got off the phone with the customer of the job I’ve been at the past month.    It was implied we were taking too long to finish the project and we needed to start putting in 10 hour days.

You’ll have to take my word on this one, but I have been busting my chops the past 5 weeks  with a crew of 2 (just myself and a helper)

The week previous I  picked up some  little clues the boss thought we must surely be about done, he had sent Dave to round up the screw guns, and extension chords .  I could see we had at least another 2 to 3 weeks, assuming there were no more change orders.  To compound my frustration, the boss has not personally set foot on the job site for two weeks,…. he personally hates detail work   (which is what we have left to finish)…

Fast forward to this phone call….

After I hung up, Jack, who was riding in the truck with me and  who had heard my side of the conversation asked what that was all about?

I repeated what I’d been told.   He reacted with “That is bull@#$%”   (which is German for that is not fair)

We both felt unappreciated and misjudged.

I could feel the anger start to build.  Rather than just stuff it, I wrote a punch list (things yet to do) when I got home.

The next morning I was @ the shop 30 minutes early, with the intention of talking to the boss one on one.

When  I got there,  the crew was already starting to trickle in. I asked to talk  with the boss in the office.   He said he didn’t  think it was necessary so I gave him the punch list in front of the assembled.    I told him  someone else could finish those items because I had my hands full,  framing walls and installing glass board.

He told me I was over-responding, and made light of my frustration.

(this is in front of others mind you)

I told someone later the mind games and passive – aggressive behavior in the midst of conflict no longer works on me quite like they once did.

Anger in and of itself is not always a bad thing…..it all depends on what you do with it.

Anger reminds me of rocket fuel.

If you’re not careful, it can  ignite, blow up and you’ll have a bigger problem.

Anger can be a wonderful  motivator for change and conflict resolution.

Thoughts, comments, questions?