Petty Annoyances
Nearly nine months have passed since I started my Daily Annoyance Log. It began with a suggestion by Arthur Brooks in one of his How to Build a Life column in The Atlantic. He teaches a course on productivity at the Harvard Business School. Arthur commented in one of his essays that he advises the class to mark down in a notebook daily something that irritated them that day. Revisit the entry in one month and six months. I’m past the six-month review. Most entries are incidents of something very transient not going right. Amid the many are a few which illustrate more ingrained, repetitive, or predictable assaults on the good nature that I and many others strive to achieve.
My state tells me they have money put into their custodial care that belongs to me. I accessed what they were holding. The funds are a mixture of investment dividends that should have been paid to me, along with much larger payments made to my office for professional fees. Fourteen years have passed since that office closed. They require documentation that I am who I claim to be. Personal assets pose no problem. Professional fees owed do, as I destroyed any documents related to it after the required seven years of retention. My accountant also destroyed tax records beyond their firm’s holding obligations. I found a business card with my name and address. Perhaps they will accept that. It could be that the old office address is documented by the state licensing board, my previous hospital, or the DEA. Once the funds are in my possession, the matter closes.
My bank annoyance is mostly moot except for its principal. I wanted to close a dormant account. My financial advisor sent me forms, which I completed. The closure of the account never happened. I drove over to the branch, closed it, then deposited the cashier’s check they issued into an active account. I filed an inquiry with the state bank commissioner, as my advisor assured me he had confirmation from the bank’s main office that the electronic transfer would go to completion.
My synagogue annoyances come in series. I owe them a measure of my skill, though some requests have become more of an insensitive imposition. It irritates me. I patch it up by rescuing some need, but never fully eliminate the resentment that gets generated. Things I prefer to do tend to get ignored by key people. To be fair, their slow but steady depletion of members likely has its basis from creation of People of Influence who become People of Entitlement. And the onus of saying No when I prefer No to a request falls with me, not them.
Lori Gottlieb, The Atlantic’s Dear Therapist, summarized the advice requests she receives into two genres. First, I’m Trapped. Second, Help me get my tormentors to change. Her advice: You are not trapped. You are the one who must change. I have to decline requests I should decline. I will from now on. Nevertheless, those are the entries on my Daily Annoyance Log that persist during the one month and six month reviews.