"You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm." - Anu claudia
For the second time, I ran across this quote last week. I remember first seeing it a couple of years ago and thinking that I needed to use it to improve my life. Self-care has been one of the hardest lessons to learn for me. I was well into my 50s, post-cancer treatment before I finally got it through my head that being selfless wasn't the only alternative to being selfish. I made a concerted effort to include myself on the list of those who deserve to be treated with care and kindness, though that list pretty much already included all people and most other living creatures with only a few notable exceptions - I am not fond of rodents or mosquitoes. But even then, I have never been particularly good at self-care or self-kindness. I have been struggling with the frustrations of pandemic life. Everything is so hard. Working as a human resources consultant when I can't be in the same room as other humans has some particular challenges. Unfortunately, I am not particularly adept at using technology so everything takes me longer and feels like a bigger struggle than it used to be. I'm doing my best, really trying to learn and adapt and get better at it. Sadly, I'm not seeing light at the end of the pandemic tunnel so I expect things are going to be like this for a long time to come.
My self-care efforts took a bit of a dive through much of this last year. I automatically retreated to my standard strategy for dealing with emotional pain - feel better by helping others to feel better. It is generally a decent strategy but I know it's not enough. However, I have been employing it a great deal in the past couple of weeks since our premier announced further closures in Ontario in the midst of Covid wave three. The very few things I regularly did to retain a modicum of sanity this last year, suddenly disappeared from my toolbox. As idiotic as it is, unless I break the law, I can't have socially distanced outdoor tea with my neighbour or my sister anymore. I can't go for osteopathic therapy, or go into a store to buy art supplies or anything other than groceries or pharmaceuticals. I can go into the liquor store - liquor stores have never closed but liquor is not essential to me. In my world, paint is essential. Paintbrushes are essential. Canvases are essential. Yarn is essential. They are the tools that are keeping me from losing my mind. So now, in order to get them, I must order them on line and drive to the store to pick them up so I can save the $14.95 delivery fee. We don't have a lot of arts and crafts supply stores in Toronto. There is Michael's and DeSerres and a couple of art supply stores for serious artists downtown but not much else that I am aware of. For me, it's pretty much just Michael's. There is a store right near my therapist and my self-care routine for the last couple of years has been to stop at the store when I finish with my osteopathic-therapy each week. On the downside, I no longer get my senior's discount because it's only available for in-store shopping and we are not allowed to shop in-store anymore. But at least I can still get supplies.
Last week, I placed my order and made the 15 kilometer trip to pick them up, arriving at 9:45 A.M., about the usual time I arrive after therapy. I dialed the number on the sign in front of me but after the phone went unanswered for a couple of minutes, I got out of my car and approached the door to look at the sign in the window to see if there was a change in store hours. Before I got there, a young friendly woman answered my call. I gave her my order number and last name. She told me she could see my order and would bring it to the front door but as the store wasn't open until 10, she asked me to come up to the door and she would open the door and hand it to me rather than waiting until the store opened and it was put it in the bin for contactless delivery. I apologized for inconveniencing her, explaining that I didn't realize the store wasn't open and offering to wait in my car until the store opened but she assured me it wasn't a problem. I approached the door and she moved toward the door with her manager who was carrying the keys. The door unlocked and the manager blasted me. She admonished me for coming before the store opened. She told me that I should be grateful they were doing me such a large courtesy, barked at me for standing too close to the door (I was outside, they were inside and we were all fully masked) and when I again apologized for not realizing the change in store hours, she snapped back that the hours had been changed a month prior and I should have known. I thanked them both profusely and retreated to my car with my tail between my legs. I decided to make allowances. I'm sure they are struggling and worried; we are all struggling and worried.
The next day, I went to the post office in the pharmacy to mail a package to my cousins across the border. I filled out the customs form (a two minute process) and handed it to the young woman behind the counter. She accepted it, charged me for the ridiculously high postage fees to mail a tiny, lightweight package and then advised that the next time I went in to mail an international package, I would be required to fill out the customs form on-line and bring it to be scanned at the post office. I thanked her and left shaking my head. Seriously? Great that it is an option but a requirement? Definitely not. That is clearly a lack of customer care at a private post office, not a requirement of the Canadian postal service. And this particular old lady doesn't need or want one more function to navigate on-line.
Then there was my adventure at McDonald's. They are in the fast food business. Twenty-one minutes to put a chicken sandwich and an egg mcmuffin in a bag is unconscionable. I get it that they are busy but they aren't one iota busier than they were before the pandemic when we could eat in the restaurant - which I did usually only annually on the day I work there each year, volunteering my time to support McHappy Day. There was no apology. No attempt to compensate me. Just a chicken sandwich that had gotten cold and tasted like cardboard.
The next day I reviewed the Michael's ad and tried to place an order. There were fluid acrylic paints shown in the weekly ad - buy two, get one free, 20 colours. I was excited. At $19.95 that would be a considerable savings for me. I placed my order but the paints didn't all ring through at the same price. The only customer service option I was given was an on-line chat. I tapped the link and answered the questions. A person responded and asked me the same questions again. I once again responded and then explained the problem. She told me I was wrong, the items were not on sale. I told her I had the ad in front of me. She told me once again it did not apply in Canada. I told her once again the ad was from Michael's Canada. She asked me for the item numbers which required I flip to a different screen. She sent two more messages within a minute as I was not responding as quickly as she wished. I responded that I am an old lady and it takes me a bit longer. I asked for her patience. She said nothing. Finally she said that she could see the ad and agreed the items were listed as being on sale, buy two, get one free, 20 colours but that actually, the sale price did not apply to all the colours, only the old colours. The ad was incorrect and she could do nothing for me. If I wanted the new colours, I would have to pay full price. In my head, I quickly calculated the price of having an argument over a bottle of paint with a customer service worker in another country who is probably making minimum wage. I told her I would find another store to shop at, thanked her for her time and clicked off. I decided to just buy the paint in the colours I wanted, one bottle at a time. Michael's always has a coupon for one regular priced item which customers can use for one purchase each day. I would use the coupon to get a discount on the paint. The following day, I tried to order a bottle of the metallic copper paint I have been coveting. The coupon was rejected as invalid, I presume because the paint was listed as a sale item. My Michael's adventures ended on Tuesday when I drove out to pick up my orders. The coupon for the copper paint finally worked that morning. By then I had placed three orders for pick up. I arrived at the store about fifteen minutes before it opened and sat patiently in my car waiting for the magic hour. The delivery bins had already been set up outside and the manager and a couple of employees were milling around the front door. They looked at me in my car but I didn't budge. At 10 o'clock I called the number on the sign to provide my order number for pick up. I was disconnected six times. Another car pulled up and I could see the man in the car also trying to call. After a couple of minutes, he got out and tried to wave someone down inside. I got out of my car and spoke with him. The phone inside Michael's was not working. He had also been disconnected on each attempt to call. In his impatience, he began pounding heavily on the glass. After several moments, a woman approached the door and unlocked it. I explained to her that the phone was not working. I handed her my order numbers and the man gave her the name of his son who had placed the order he was there to pick up. She returned with my three orders but not with his. His son had made the purchase on-line but it was a few hours later than the pick-up window allowed. The money had been refunded and the merchandise put back on the shelf. The man asked if he could just buy the merchandise now and pay her. She told him he would have to order it on-line, she could not go into the store and get it for him though it was sitting on the shelf. I wished him the best and left.
On the way home, I started thinking about the sequence of events that had occurred in the last week. Michael's, McDonald's and Canada Post are all huge corporations. The pandemic is now more than a year old. They have had lots of time to figure out the way to provide decent service to their customers. I realize that their employees are struggling in the same way we are all struggling. They are frustrated and fearful and so I have tried extra hard to extend grace to them. I'm frustrated and fearful too. But the frustration and fear experienced by their workers, in no way, dismisses their corporate responsibility to provide their paying customers with reasonable and fair service and products. I will extend grace to others where I can, but I will no longer do it without the expectation of reciprocity from businesses that continue to fill their coffers while the world burns down.
