Maybe it’s because I’m not a parent, maybe it’s because I’m a miserable bastard…. But I find that the noise of a crying baby cuts right through me. I look around, and pretty much everybody else seems to be looking over at the wailing infant with happy, indulgent smiles, but for me it’s like fingernails down a blackboard. Only much, much more grating.
Am I weird? Am I perhaps missing some important nurturing part of my genetic makeup?
Or maybe – just maybe - it’s bang out of order to bring your screaming child into an open-plan office environment and then sit around chatting with your mates for nearly an hour.
Yeah. I reckon it’s that.
Take it away and don’t bring it back until it has learnt how to keep its unhappiness at being in that building locked away inside.
We all feel like that, but the rest of us have learned to internalise our pain and to suffer more quietly.
I'm right there with ya, pal.
ReplyDeletei agree, you are a miserable bastard - and there are a LOT of indulged kids - where i work (an accessible and child-friendly arts organisation with a cafe) we have automatic doors which open onto the road - the number of times the little sods run out of the door as their parents smile on benignly - as i always say to other members of staff, "let em get run over, they won't do it again" (and I'm a parent!).
ReplyDeletecrying kids - being a parent is hard so i have sympathy for parents who are clearly struggling - but if they're carrying on their business with no regard for how annoying the crying is... and in the workplace? really?!
when all's said and done, i think you're just jealous that you have to internalise your own despair. let it out, dude!