A couple of months ago, I made a costly mistake at work due to a lack of attention paid. The floor where I work is an open flexi-space, meaning that we have no set desks and lockers to store our personal belongings. Each place does come with default options, however - two screens, a dock, a desk that can be raised or lowered, a chair and, a keyboard. The problem is, the keyboard is one of those ridiculous ones that developers like to use that can be heard from the outskirts of the solar system. I am unable to type on them (I am a poor typist at the best of times) and spend most of my time noisily smashing the delete key.
The mistake I made was that I had saved my keyboard with the keys I prefer from my original office space and had been able to protect it for a year, until one night, where I slipped. After a long training session that ran into the night, I finished up for the evening and forgot to put the keyboard in my locker - gone - never to be seen again. This unfortunate loss meant a further reduction in me efficiency and productivity, as I have struggled to become accustomed to the keyboard of the mentally ill - until today.
Since I happened to be working past IT with the ringing of keystrokes in my ears that haunt me in my dreams, I remembered that I should ask to see if they have any of the old keyboards available, of which they have heaps, since the devs don't want them, but they come with the desktops that some people use. So, not only do I have one for work, I scored another for home to replace the one that is on the way out.
It is funny how little things like this can effect productivity and at times, send the mind into a loop of annoyance, like when the sound of a dripping tap while trying to get sleep sounds like a sledgehammer hitting steel plate.
I was talking to the colleague I helped move house and we were discussing setting up spaces to improve flow and reduce potential issues. He is expecting his first child in a few months and is thinking about how they are arranging their lives to make it a little easier on them. This is important in my opinion, as one can never really know what to expect with a newborn, as I know very well due to the disruptions caused to our lives that were far outside what "normal" would look like. Normal is relative to experience of course.
We were also talking about how improving practical functionality of the home can reduce stress when the unexpected does happen, which allows to focus on the problems at hand rather than having to deal with a cluster of problems, many of which could have been avoided. As I was saying to him, I think that it is good to have challenges in life to overcome as a couple, as it can develop the relationship to be able to cope under future pressures better - which can happen unexpectedly.
For example, a lot of couples seem to break up when they are building or renovating a house together, as there are often surprises that will not only force a change of plans or short-notice work, will also incur additional costs that put pressure on what is often already tight budgets. It becomes a cluster of problems that can be hard to deal with under normal circumstances, but when there are additional pressures and all of the little annoyances along the way, it can cause relationship rifts to form.
I think that the challenges my wife and I have faced over what is a relatively short period of time we have been together, has allowed us to have some additional resilience (as well as acceptance) to what we might be facing together today - which means that while we will argue and complain, we also have the sense that we are safe in the relationship, that what we deal with doesn't threaten us as a couple. This reduces the stress a great deal and perhaps signals that the couples that do breakup over building a house, might be justified to do so, since they may not have the trust required, considering renovating a house is definitely not the most challenging thing a couple may face in their lifetime together.
Shared experience in adversity tends to bring people together, which is possibly because each may feel not only like survivors, but also survivors who helped another and got helped by others along the way. But, the people who feel that they are helping, but having roadblocks put in the way by the other person, will start to feel some level of resentment, that can fester until it makes treatment difficult and all of those little background annoyances get amplified to the volume of a mechanical keyboard.
It's the little things that matter works in both directions, and while a strong relationship is built upon a series of small positive actions, a relationship can also be dismantled through a series of negative actions or, a passive approach to dealing with the small things. It might only be a change of keyboard, but the knock-on effects of that change can impact on other flows of activity - down in the case of me losing my old board, up in the case of me getting a new one. Perhaps if we look for the "keyboards of our relationships", we might find small ways to streamline our lives so we have more bandwidth and are more capable to deal with the larger things as they arise, whether it be a sick child, building a house, or being forced to disrupt all processes due to a global pandemic.
We only have so much time, energy and attention to give our day, so effectively and consistently improving our environment where and when we can, gives us space when we can't. From a relationship perspective, there are many times where one partner doesn't have the space to perform at their best, so it is useful if the other can pick up some slack to lessen the burden. Sometimes however, both parties are under pressure and perhaps the only thing that comforts each, is knowing that they are in it together. It isn't always easy to do, as it takes experience and preparation to build a relationship that can face and hopefully, weather the storm.
Press any key to begin.
"Where's the any key?"
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
