Choosing Your Battles

Now, in many relationship advice books or forums, people will tell you to choose your battles. Of course, this comes in incredibly handy in relationships because, quite frankly, nobody is going to be the same as you. Especially when you live together, you are then trying to fit two lives into one and there will be many conflicting issues when two opinions are trying to melt into one.

However, my story doesn’t focus on a relationship per se. But it is about learning to deal with the small stuff, and only making a big deal over big things so that people have no way to argue back with you.

When my husband and I got our first apartment, it was in a “fixed” state. And what I mean by that is simply that the people before us were very rough on the place, having big parties and crazy enough to throw a couch off the deck into someone’s car below. Needless to say, they were kicked out, and all the stickers on the fan blades, the dirt and garbage throughout the place, and patch work here and there needed to be done. It wasn’t perfect when we got it, but it was our first place and that was all that mattered.

As time would go on, the lack of a screen door on our deck (the previous tenants had smashed that), had started wilting the corner of the door inwards. We mentioned it several times for almost a year, but it apparently wasn’t a big issue. We also had a screen missing in our bedroom window which was mentioned, but that never got fixed either. My husband wanted to stop paying our rent and be a little more forceful when it came to getting these simple repairs done, but I took the much gentler approach and said that we’ll just wait a little longer.

Now, as you can imagine, when those -40 winter days come, having an exposed corner of your door to the outside was a huge issue. When I could sit on my couch and see the snow outside on my deck through the one corner, that was an issue. Unfortunately nobody did anything about it. We kept being promised that something would happen, but it didn’t. And after a year and a half of being there, I decided that it was finally time to make a little noise. So I found the e-mail for the CEO of the rental company, thanked him for making cheaper places available and for having pet allowance (that a lot of places don’t), I simply explained to him our situation and reminded him how awful it was going to be on another -40 night. My door was fixed within 2 days. Now, I also had my fridge quit, and that was replaced right away. Had I complained and been more forceful about everything, I don’t think this would have been the case.

In my e-mail to the CEO, I also mentioned I was planning to move to another one of the company’s rental properties simply for being closer to work, and without asking, in apologizing for what we had been through, he waived our transition fee and got me an apartment rather quickly. I also had an ex-landlord of our current property (she was promoted higher in the company) call and offer any assistance in the transition I needed. Now think about that for a moment. I chose my battle. I didn’t battle every little thing. When you have lots of little incidences built up, people can see where you’re coming from over the bigger things and are usually more than willing to help you out.

Fast forward to our new place. In the year we’ve been here, we moved in with 2 broken sets of blinds (still never been replaced), a missing screen in our office window, the basement leaked every time it rained, our basement completely flooded twice, and just recently our tub quit draining. Now of course, my husband wants to take the same forceful approach because in reality, it is ridiculous. However, they did fairly quickly respond to the flooding, it took them about a year to fix the cracks in the basement, but they still did it, and it’s now taken them 5 days to fix our tub, plus I will have to call them back tomorrow because the piping from the tub is still dripping over our kitchen counter. But I haven’t made a big deal about any of it, and I choose not to because the more compliant you are over the small things, the more compliant they will usually be when it comes to something big.

So people, choose your battles. Don’t make a huge deal about everything or people will treat you as that “complainer”. But be patient with the small things, and you watch how much people will do what they can for you when it comes to a big thing.

I Always Seem To Catch Those “Good” Flights

So yesterday, my sister and I flew back to the West Coast. Of course, this means one layover as always.

Our first plane ended up being over 1/2 hour late. Naturally, everybody is watching their clocks to see if we’ll make our connections.

We arrive at the connecting airport with 25 minutes to departure time: enough time to run and make it. However, we did not pull up to a gate, but rather sat on the runway waiting for a gate, watching the time tick away.

Thankfully, my husband was able to go on the internet and find they postponed the flight 10 minutes. So we got off the plane and RAN.

We arrive at the next gate, and NOBODY has started boarding yet. So we sit and wait a minute, only to find out that something is wrong with our next plane. And so we go grab some food quickly and return to wait.

Eventually, the gate attendant announces that our plane is unserviceable and that we have another plane at a different gate awaiting us. Thus begins the mass crowd moving through the airport.

Of course, when they say they have a plane “waiting” for you, you assume you’re going to start boarding right away. Hence the reason most people stood around the gate rather than deciding to sit down. Yet we remain waiting.

As time goes by, we are told the flight crew has still not made the transition but they are working on it.

You know the look of people running late.. quite like this!

Awhile later we are told they are on the aircraft but are doing their safety checks.

Eventually we were able to board and did so quickly. But instead of leaving right away, we sat. Of course, the longer you sit, the more people begin looking around for the reason we have no left yet. Lo and behold, two men with red vests get on the plane and head to the back. We received an announcement of some “cosmetic” repairs that needed done to the flight attendant’s radio station, and that because we have been so delayed, we were losing a crew member and will have to wait for another. Oh boy.

I’m happy to say that eventually we did get away from the gate and off the runway, and somehow only managed to be 1 hour 15 minutes late, but man was I happy to finally make it home. It makes such a difference when you spend your time waiting vs. knowing ahead of time how much time you have to go do what you want. However, it is what it is and I’m thankful that God allowed them to fly us safely and comfortably. Always look for that positive thing even when it may be hard to find!

Finally on our way.