stop complaining

within the last month. One was to a local grocery store, about their service. Never heard back. The other was about a medical procedure. I got a prompt letter back saying they got my letter and forwarded to the head of the department. They’ll respond soon.

One shows good customer service. Even if I don’t like the response from the 2nd, I at least know they heard me.

Constructive complaining at work.

In fact, here are some topics I thought of today!

1. The Boston Red Sox.
2. I hate it when people are driving and don’t signal. It’s such a simple thing, telling other drivers what you’re going to do. It seems that fewer people are signalling than ever before. Why?
3. People who park wrong so they take more than one parking space. I don’t mean when I do it; I do it only because I’m the world’s worst parker. But people who do that often do it on purpose.
4. Commuters who aren’t polite.

Gee, most of these things have to do with cars. Good thing I don’t commute any more. Guess I should write that up as something for which I’m grateful.

I figured this out. The key is to properly complain, not to quit.

My goal should be this. Write a letter if you think you’ve been wronged. Or complain to the manager when it happens. I don’t think this works for the situation when people are talking too much at a movie, but it does work if Trader Joe’s promises to carry kosher meat and doesn’t. Or yesterday when Safeway offered to carry the box of firelogs to my car but then couldn’t do it.

This also extends, I think, to talking to your friends or loved ones if there’s a big problem to discuss. (Not the small ones….sheesh…we have enough of those, we produce enough of those.) Don’t wait until the big blow-up and then wonder why you’re so upset.

Not doing so well on this one. I find myself complaining in my blog. One was about how people are so disturbing in movie theatres; I find I’m going to movies less because of it. And the one I just posted was about how my health insurance went up, so high in fact that it cancelled out my entire raise. My salary for 2008 will be less than 2007.

See??? I’m doing it again!

I love working on projects, big and little. But I have this annoying habit of complaining to anyone who will listen. It’s obvious (to me) that this is an attention-getter. See here, I’m working on this very important project, and things could’ve been a disaster, but I fixed it.

I was working on something the other day and I said, I really enjoy this kind of thing. My friend looked at me and said, “Really?” Probably he said that because I continue to whine about such things. But, really….I enjoy them. I enjoy setting them up, putting the details together, seeing it through, and finally, enjoying the result.

I just have to stop whining about all the little problems I encounter along the way.