Just One Scenario

2 out of 3

You know the difference between good stress, and bad stress.   Good stress spurns you on to finish a project just before the deadline.   Bad stress is, well, better to avoid all together.  You are all too knowledgeable about the detrimental health effects.  You are at an age in life where you have the right to remove yourself from any situation that can negatively affect you.

There are several things about strata that are stressful, although you are able to minimize your exposure with some careful planning.   You take your garbage down early in the morning on your way to work, so you don’t have to talk to anyone.  The awkward elevator silence is thankfully short-lived, and only has to be endured a few times each day.   A comfortable home is waiting for you at the end of a long day; all you have to do is survive the gauntlet of other residents between your car in the parkade, and your suite door.

You can’t help notice a fair-sized chunk of dirt that’s been sitting just outside your door for 3 days now.  It was probably tracked in by the construction worker who lives down the hall.  It was annoying for awhile, now it’s getting frustrating, especially since you work hard to pay your strata fees.  That’s what the cleaners are getting paid to do, after all.   Maybe you’ll send an email to the strata manager if you remember once you get to work.

You do actually end up sending that email, and you receive a reply from the strata manager a couple days later.   They ask to confirm your suite number, building address, and a brief description of the location of the dirt clump.  You reply almost immediately after receiving his email.  The workday completes, and you haven’t received a reply.   Another day or two goes by, and you’re wondering if they got your email.   You find yourself getting angry at this perceived slight, and think to yourself that you deserve better treatment than that.   You somehow collect yourself, and write a nice email to the strata manager, asking if they had received your communication.   They reply with a brief one-liner stating “yes, I did and passed that on to the cleaning company”.

After a week of seeing the clump of dirt on the carpet, you finally get sick of it and pick it up yourself.   You make a mental note that the cleaning company is obviously not doing a very good job, and plan to complain at the AGM in a couple weeks.  Come to think of it, you don’t remember the last time you heard the vacuum running in your hallway……..