Dealing With Adversity

I don't do adversity well. I may have written about this here before, though I can't remember for sure. I should probably define adversity. In the broadest sense it could be anything from war to a totaled car to dealing with a bully to a hangnail. In the extremes.

For me, I need to have peace in my life to be fully productive. The bills need to be paid, the house needs to be in order, the cars need to be running, the government should be a beneficent protector, and I should be surrounded by books. That would come close to being the absence of adversity.

So when we try to Skype with the grandkids, discover for sure that our webcam isn't working (which we didn't think it was but trying to Skype was worth a try), that's a minor adversity. When I don't remember that the wife wants that computer for a webinar and so call Dell at a bad time, that's adversity. When Dell fixes the webcam (taking about 45 minutes to do so) but at the same time seems to knock out the wireless capability, that's adversity. When for the next 4 hours they can't get the wireless back up despite multiple analytics, system restores, and who knows what else, that's adversity.

Five hours of phone time with a foreign call center tech, with the problem left unresolved, is not my idea of peace. Nor is three calls the next day from Dell about how much they want to get it right. I'm afraid that by the end of the call I was not very nice to the technician, nor to his supervisor.  Last night I rebooted the router, which we didn't do the previous night because Lynda was connected and said she had service. After the reboot I had service—but now the webcam wasn't working again. Sigh. I'm scheduled to talk with Dell tonight. Maybe I'll let them work on it, maybe not. Maybe my webcam and my wireless are at war with each other

In the realm of "things adding to a peaceful life," this morning I left work for an hour to go to the nearby tire shop and have a slow leak on one of the van tires repaired. In and out quickly was nice, although their debit card reader wasn't working, I had no cash and no checkbook, and so couldn't pay them the $17.26 bill. I said I would bring a check by later in the day, and they let me have the van. As I was driving back to work, they called me on my cell and said to never mind coming back, that they would waive the bill. Peaceful.

Now tonight, if Dell can fix the webcam in an hour and not screw-up the router, I will declare peace in my war with them. If I can complete my state taxes I will declare peace in my war with the government. Well, maybe not quite yet on that one. If I can get a couple of bills paid and the checkbook entries completed, I will declare peace in the household and make time to edit my work-in-progress novel.