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[This bit is f'locked for family stuff, and would have just derailed the 'project pictures yay!' post. Make sure you read the happy-pictures-progress-yay post too, or you'll get the idea that I'm dismal and grumpy. :P]
Saturday I did a LOT of standing/walking for my injured foot, which made me tend to irritable already -- and then my brother showed up to 'help.' (actually, dad told him he had to come so he wouldn't be in mom's hair -- we were all having dinner there later, and we didn't want a pissed-off mom). Problem being, we weren't doing anything that required three people -- it sometimes didn't require two -- and I need this to be my job; part of the goal is coming away confident that I can do all this shit.* Giving him jobs meant I wasn't doing them.
I had a job I'd already offered to pay him for -- taking nails out of the old fence boards -- but he wouldn't stick with that for more than ten minutes at a stretch because it wasn't where dad and I were working and it wasn't part of the cool project. Despite the fact that I was willing to pay him for one, and not the other. E showed up out of the blue to help, too, which may have made it worse -- we didn't need three people, let alone four, and having E with us emphasized the all-the-cool-kids-are-in-the-garage problem my brother was having.
Dad's gotten used to managing him, though, and so we found jobs nearer us every so often to try to keep him engaged. He helped move the door back; he took his turn with the hammer drill. The hammer drill thing points up some of the painful contrast between us; he wanted to do the job -- apparently he likes hammer drills and has used them before -- and he still took multiple breaks on one hole, complained about his arms, and had to be corrected on some element of tool misuse (I don't know what -- I try to avoid being an audience for uncomfortable lectures). I can be in serious pain and keep trucking without much complaint (I make 'uuuaaargh' noises, but that's more a better-out-than-in thing). My brother can't stick with a job for ten minutes without saying he's exhausted and needs a break. One of his avoidance-techniques is to randomly stop working to call people -- any people. Then he offers to pass the phone around and interrupt everyone else's work, too. This time he called my uncle, and then I got to hear how apparently we'd been working my brother to death, and he'd really put in a hard day. Dude showed up three hours after we got started**, took breaks every half hour or more, and did less while he was working. And I was actually in pain from an actual injury the whole time.
I don't actually expect other people to work through real pain, but it's really hard for me to hold back the 'suck it up, dude' when he seems to be stopped by the most minor discomfort. It's not a competition; it's not okay to compare the two of us. I have it way easier than him, and I know it. But we're talking manual labor, and he could shine if he just had an ounce of stick-with-it. Instead he's not just not-working, he's constantly derailing everyone else.
(I admit I have some old issues in this area, too -- when I was fourteen my fifteen-year-old incredibly irresponsible male cousin came up to help on my family's remodel and was always given 'real' remodeling tasks. When I asked what I could do to help, dad usually said 'make lunch'. In retrospect I realize that it was probably at least in part that I'd been on crutches and doing major medical stuff less than a year before and he was used to being careful of me, and I was small, with very little upper body strength. But it stung, and the omg-sexism bitterness really hung on.)
Other weird things: At one point my brother asked "When did you get a sawsall?" which was bizarre and awkward, because he'd been there when I received it as a christmas gift in 2011, and when I'd playfully called them 'big girl toys' he'd said "No, they're big boy toys and I should have gotten them," with absolute bile in his voice. :| (I took him to task for being a sexist pig -- I couldn't even bring myself to touch gift etiquette -- and never told my parents about it, 'cause they would've flipped).
The job I offered to pay him for still isn't done, and the once-neatly-piled boards are a total mess now, but... I didn't expect much more than that. I'm disappointed that he tried to lie and tell me the job was done -- holy shit, dude, the pile of boards is only 40' away and it's my house, and I can tell you didn't finish the job! -- but I'm not really surprised by that, either.
I think dad's right that he has a Thing about being sent away to work elsewhere. All the things I've had him do for me have been like that, and they've all been disasters. I'll have to remember that in future, but it's a bit counter-intuitive -- usually if I'm going to hire someone it's because they either have more expertise than me, or because I have other shit to do and don't want to hang around and do that job. My brother can only do the later type of job, but he needs someone working alongside him in order to work at all.
*sigh*
This seems pretty heavy, but really, it went about as well as could be; I didn't snap at my brother; I enjoy working with my dad and E; and E really, really gets that I need to do stuff myself, so he doesn't even jump in unless he knows it's something I've already done and am comfortable with, despite a lot more experience in some things (concrete and plumbing, mostly). Dad was really good about it, too -- he swings back and forth between being a great teacher and 'darn it, it's quicker if I just do it myself', but we've been really clear with each other about how this needs to be mine, and he respects that.
And we got everything done this weekend we'd planned on, which counts as major remodeling success!
*Except lift 80lb bags of concrete. I really, really can't.
**He was working for someone in the morning, but it wasn't us making him do it.
Saturday I did a LOT of standing/walking for my injured foot, which made me tend to irritable already -- and then my brother showed up to 'help.' (actually, dad told him he had to come so he wouldn't be in mom's hair -- we were all having dinner there later, and we didn't want a pissed-off mom). Problem being, we weren't doing anything that required three people -- it sometimes didn't require two -- and I need this to be my job; part of the goal is coming away confident that I can do all this shit.* Giving him jobs meant I wasn't doing them.
I had a job I'd already offered to pay him for -- taking nails out of the old fence boards -- but he wouldn't stick with that for more than ten minutes at a stretch because it wasn't where dad and I were working and it wasn't part of the cool project. Despite the fact that I was willing to pay him for one, and not the other. E showed up out of the blue to help, too, which may have made it worse -- we didn't need three people, let alone four, and having E with us emphasized the all-the-cool-kids-are-in-the-garage problem my brother was having.
Dad's gotten used to managing him, though, and so we found jobs nearer us every so often to try to keep him engaged. He helped move the door back; he took his turn with the hammer drill. The hammer drill thing points up some of the painful contrast between us; he wanted to do the job -- apparently he likes hammer drills and has used them before -- and he still took multiple breaks on one hole, complained about his arms, and had to be corrected on some element of tool misuse (I don't know what -- I try to avoid being an audience for uncomfortable lectures). I can be in serious pain and keep trucking without much complaint (I make 'uuuaaargh' noises, but that's more a better-out-than-in thing). My brother can't stick with a job for ten minutes without saying he's exhausted and needs a break. One of his avoidance-techniques is to randomly stop working to call people -- any people. Then he offers to pass the phone around and interrupt everyone else's work, too. This time he called my uncle, and then I got to hear how apparently we'd been working my brother to death, and he'd really put in a hard day. Dude showed up three hours after we got started**, took breaks every half hour or more, and did less while he was working. And I was actually in pain from an actual injury the whole time.
I don't actually expect other people to work through real pain, but it's really hard for me to hold back the 'suck it up, dude' when he seems to be stopped by the most minor discomfort. It's not a competition; it's not okay to compare the two of us. I have it way easier than him, and I know it. But we're talking manual labor, and he could shine if he just had an ounce of stick-with-it. Instead he's not just not-working, he's constantly derailing everyone else.
(I admit I have some old issues in this area, too -- when I was fourteen my fifteen-year-old incredibly irresponsible male cousin came up to help on my family's remodel and was always given 'real' remodeling tasks. When I asked what I could do to help, dad usually said 'make lunch'. In retrospect I realize that it was probably at least in part that I'd been on crutches and doing major medical stuff less than a year before and he was used to being careful of me, and I was small, with very little upper body strength. But it stung, and the omg-sexism bitterness really hung on.)
Other weird things: At one point my brother asked "When did you get a sawsall?" which was bizarre and awkward, because he'd been there when I received it as a christmas gift in 2011, and when I'd playfully called them 'big girl toys' he'd said "No, they're big boy toys and I should have gotten them," with absolute bile in his voice. :| (I took him to task for being a sexist pig -- I couldn't even bring myself to touch gift etiquette -- and never told my parents about it, 'cause they would've flipped).
The job I offered to pay him for still isn't done, and the once-neatly-piled boards are a total mess now, but... I didn't expect much more than that. I'm disappointed that he tried to lie and tell me the job was done -- holy shit, dude, the pile of boards is only 40' away and it's my house, and I can tell you didn't finish the job! -- but I'm not really surprised by that, either.
I think dad's right that he has a Thing about being sent away to work elsewhere. All the things I've had him do for me have been like that, and they've all been disasters. I'll have to remember that in future, but it's a bit counter-intuitive -- usually if I'm going to hire someone it's because they either have more expertise than me, or because I have other shit to do and don't want to hang around and do that job. My brother can only do the later type of job, but he needs someone working alongside him in order to work at all.
*sigh*
This seems pretty heavy, but really, it went about as well as could be; I didn't snap at my brother; I enjoy working with my dad and E; and E really, really gets that I need to do stuff myself, so he doesn't even jump in unless he knows it's something I've already done and am comfortable with, despite a lot more experience in some things (concrete and plumbing, mostly). Dad was really good about it, too -- he swings back and forth between being a great teacher and 'darn it, it's quicker if I just do it myself', but we've been really clear with each other about how this needs to be mine, and he respects that.
And we got everything done this weekend we'd planned on, which counts as major remodeling success!
*Except lift 80lb bags of concrete. I really, really can't.
**He was working for someone in the morning, but it wasn't us making him do it.
