i be naija

If there were one kind of person that I couldn’t stand for too long, it would be the kind that I call, for want of another term, stressors. A stressor, to put it colloquially, makes a big deal out of everything. This person possesses attributes that might generally be considered positives (such as attention to detail, punctuality, etc.), but the problem is that, in general, the stressor does not know where to draw the line. The stressor creates a sense of urgency where there is no rational reason for one, over-dramatizes simple issues until they become conundra (I prefer “conundra” to “conundrums”, thank you), and in general will belabor an issue until everyone around him or her has a literal headache!

Yesterday, while awaiting my flight back to Chicago from St. Louis, I noticed that I had missed a call from my Project Manager. I called him back immediately, only to be barraged with insinuations that if we didn’t submit the documents we were working on to the clients by tomorrow, the world would positively end. My reaction was, wait a minute… the documents are not due tomorrow!!! Well, that didn’t matter. The PM had his mind set on submitting the documents tomorrow (never mind that the documents weren’t ready yet), and nothing, nothing, would dissuade him. Would I then, he asked, (nay, ordered) see to it that the documents were good to go tomorrow? And, while I was at it, would I reschedule my return flight (i.e. back to St. Louis) from Tuesday to Monday, so that I could get back to the office (on a holiday at the client) to get more stuff done?

To be sure, it was highly unlikely that the clients would receive the document by midday Friday and review it same day, or over the weekend. Given that Monday was a holiday; it was more likely that they’d look at the documents on Tuesday—or Wednesday, even. But here we were, on Friday, frantically sending files back and forth between St. Louis and Chicago, engaging in telephone conversations every ten minutes or so, and getting generally stressed-out. It would have taken me two hours, tops, to get all that stuff done on-site, on Monday or early Tuesday.

The stressor, I tell you, always creates urgency where there is no rational reason for one.

p.s.: I love you Voom; no hard feelings.