Various Irritations

My Daily Annoyance Log nears the completion of its ninth month.  It began with a suggestion by Arthur Brooks in one of his How to Build a Life column in The Atlantic.  He teaches a course on productivity at the Harvard Business School.  Arthur commented in one of his essays that he advises the class to mark down in a notebook daily something that irritated them that day.  Review the entry one month and six months later.  I'm past the six month review.  Most entries are incidents of something very transient not going right.  Amid the many are a few which illustrate more ingrained, repetitive, or predictable assaults on the good nature that I and many others strive to achieve. 

My state tells me they have money put into their custodial care that belongs to me.  I accessed what they were holding.  It is a mixture of funds that should have been paid to me as investment dividends, along with much larger payments made to my office for professional fees.  That office closed fourteen years ago.  They require documentation that I am who I claim to be.  My personal assets pose no problem.  My professional ones do, as I destroyed any documents related to it after the required seven years of retention. My accountant also destroyed tax records beyond their holding obligations.  I found a business card with my name and address.  Perhaps they will accept that.  Or perhaps the state licensing board, my old hospital, or the DEA will keep a record that has the old office address.  Once the funds are in my possession, the matter closes.

My bank annoyance is mostly moot except for its principal.  I wanted to close a dormant account. My financial advisor sent me forms, which I completed.  The account was never closed.  I drove over to the branch, closed it, then deposited the cashier's check they issued into an active account.  I did file an inquiry with the state bank commissioner, as my advisor assured me he had confirmation from the bank's main office that the electronic transfer would go to completion.

My synagogue annoyances come in series.  I owe them a measure of my skill, though some requests have become more of an insensitive imposition.  It irritates me.  I patch it up by rescuing some need, but never fully eliminate the resentment that gets generated.  Things that I want to do tend to get ignored by key people.  To be fair, their slow but steady depletion of members likely has its basis from creation of People of Influence who become People of Entitlement.  And the onus of saying No when I prefer No to a request falls with me, not them.

Lori Gottlieb, The Atlantic's Dear Therapist, summarized the advice requests she receives into two genres.  First, I'm Trapped.  Second, Help me get my tormentors to change.  Her advice:  You are not trapped.  You have to change.  I have to decline requests that I should decline.  I will going forward.  But those are the items on my Daily Annoyance Log that linger at the one month and six month revisits.