TheBanyanTree: The following week

[JMoney]

I met Lida in first semester 2002.  She was a student in a database class I
tutored one week when the usual tutor was away.  The following Sunday I saw
her at church so I made sure to say hello and from there we have developed a
sort of friendship along mother/daughter lines but with a cross-cultural
twist that I'm still trying to unravel without any great expectation of
success.

She's a product of the People's Republic of China's one-child per family
rule.  Sometimes I wonder if that helps to explain how she can be so bossy.
It used to bother me because I'm quite bad at standing up to other people's
bossiness.  But God puts people together so that they will strike iron
against iron and smooth off each other's burrs so now, if I have to, I can
say no.  Now I can watch her telling everyone what to do and find it
amusing.  That's Lida.

She's also quite stubborn and self-confident.  She will ask for help but if
she doesn't fully understand why she should be doing things in a particular
way she won't do them that way.  Instead she'll continue working at a
problem until she produces her own solution.

On Tuesday she rang to find out why I hadn't appeared at church last Sunday.
I told her I'd been ill and then she told me her good news.

After a lot of trying she managed to get herself a reasonable job updating
and merging database information but it's only for 30 hours a week.  Now
she's thrilled because she's also managed to get work during the evening
shift at McDonald's.

Here is where I start wondering about the cross-cultural thing.  I don't
know anyone from within my own culture who is over the age of about 25 and
who would be gigglingly happy to have landed a job at Maccas.  Most
especially I can't imagine that anyone from within my own culture who has
two postgraduate qualifications would be overjoyed to get such a job.  But
Lida is ecstatic over her good fortune.

Lida is the one who referred the web-site-needing people to me.  After
having rejoiced over her job at Maccas she asked me how the web-site thing
was going.  I told her about the meeting that hadn't happened the previous
Friday and that I hadn't heard anything since.  She suggested that I should
ring up and find out.  That is what she would do.  Most definitely I could
believe that.

For me, exclusion is personally threatening.  The question is whether it's
better to know for sure that others have no interest in behaving
considerately towards me or whether it's better not to know.  Thankfully
I've been alive for long enough and been through enough to have learned that
other people's rudeness does not necessarily mean that I deserve to be
treated that way.  But it was Lida's suggestion that I ring up and find out
that made me realise that it was fear of finding out that was stopping me.

On Wednesday evening I sent an email to my contact at the, perhaps illusory,
workplace.  Did the meeting ever eventuate, I asked.

On Thursday morning the reply came.  The meeting occurred the same day it
was scheduled but at about 5pm.  The job had been given to them (as I
already knew it would be).  Another meeting was being held that very day,
probably to sort out the nitty gritty of the system requirements.  I should
contact another named person if I had any questions.

I've been mulling that information over.  The thing I thought might be true
has turned out to be true.  It leaves me feeling weary and, yet again,
disappointed.

The proper thing to do, I guess, is to ring the named person up and find out
whether there will be anything more for me to do on this project.  So that's
what I'll do, and take it from there.

Janice