Mind games

A big pet peeve of mine-- people who bottle things up until it is too late to do anything to address the problem because it has gone beyond the stage of possibly being fixed before the other party had any idea there even was a problem, or until they explode inappropriately. We had a bit of a bru-ha-ha at the ole homestead this evening over our recent electricity bill. As has been all over the news lately, there has been a huge rate increase for electricity and gas here in Britain. Actually in everything it seems, because they just increased the fare for all public transportation too, as apparently they do every New Years' Day. Argh. But anyway, I recently bought a decent size electric heater at Homebase, which I then left in our lounge until I brought it into work. Our office, which is on an abandoned ward, can be very cold, and we all decided to contribute a few pounds each toward an electric heater. Now, our recent electric bill was pretty high, higher than our gas bill in fact, and someone decided the huge increase from when the bill was last paid in October until now, must have been due to the fact that I'm using electric heaters all the time. And wrote a nasty, accusatory email with offensive language, stating they were not going to pay a full third of the bill when I was the one using so much electricity. I now have an apology, after I gave an explanation of where the electric heater actually lives (as above), but I really don't like this style of communication. There was no reason for this whole thing to ever have been played out with such drama and disrespect, when it could have been dealt with diplomatically face to face. As it eventually was, once everyone was home together tonight-- But the damage had already been done from the awful email earlier in the day. Final tally: it's the electricity company to blame with large rate increase, not any individual in our house using tons and tons of electricity.

Now, this person is not British, but it did get me to reflecting over the past almost year I have lived here... I have found that the British stereotype of being very reserved and not discussing feelings and not bringing up problems until (quite often) it's too late, is still alive and doing very well in Blighty. I've run into this obstacle in several important instances, and it's like banging your head against a brick wall, "If you'd only said something to me, I had no idea!..." Very, very, very frustrating to know a situation might have been avoided or resolved, some compromise reached, if only you had known what the other person was thinking or feeling. Again, this is not to say that every British national fits this stereotype, but you do get to often wishing you were a mind reader over here. Sheesh.

It was a very mild day here today, around 60ish (15 degrees Celsius), which would have made for a nice run, but I'm very much not inclined to run in Leytonstone-- let me just diplomatically say it's not inspiring at all. So it was the treadmill at the gym again for me. However, as a birthday gift, my parents gave me a 3-month subscription to demandfitness.com, which came with a 4th month free. I signed up yesterday, and I must say I am very impressed! Over 150 classes, which include everything from yoga, pilates, fitness ball, ab workouts, cardio workouts, you name it, different levels available for each class, all available on demand via streaming video. Very cool. I'll let you know in a month or so how I'm getting on with it as a supplement to my gym membership!