I've been very grumpy this week. A few things have gone wrong at home, and they've bugged me. A couple of companies have (arguably) treated me unfairly; our washing machine's broken; our internet has been down for a few days; our house is a bit of a mess ready for some work to be done on it.
All this has left me feeling unsettled, despite Hannah's constant reminders that actually, none of this matters.
I phoned BT yesterday when I got home from work, to find out when our internet might start working. I went through the normal rigmarole associated with getting through the BT call centre obstacle course, pressing '1' repeatedly, entering my home number, and got through to an operator.
She did her best to help, though she no doubt spends most her day talking to people who are as frustrated as I was. I kept saying that I know it's not her fault, that I was just frustrated that we'd not had internet access! For a few days! As if without access to Twitter and Facebook in my non-working hours my world might fall apart.
I doubt those words were much comfort though, from the tone of the rest of my call. "I know it's not your fault BUT WHY ISN'T THIS FIXED, NOW? I MUST UPDATE MY TWITTER STATUS, AND I CAN'T, AND IT'S YOUR FAULT." *
Oh, the wonder of hindsight.
It's easy to be gracious in person, when you are constantly reminded that there is a real human being affected by the things you say. Less so when the other person is the other side of a telephone exchange, or an internet server.
This is character - the part of me that is shown up in the way I treat people who will never meet me. I've got an awfully long way to go.
* That's not quite how the conversation went, but for the life of me I can't figure out now why being able to access the internet last night was important.