The Moral of "Pierre" is Care!

Remember the boy named Pierre? Who only would say “I don’t care”?

Well, after years of caring too much, I finally said, “I don’t care” yesterday. Only it was to a reporter, which probably wasn’t the best person to vent my frustrations on. OK, I’m being a little dramatic, I recovered quite nicely, of course, but he could tell I was harboring resentment from somewhere.

Oh my job. It’s not even my job really. It’s my job(s). I have too many. I wear too many hats and sometimes get confused as to which hat I’m wearing or which hat people assume I’m wearing when they call me.

So a few weeks ago, I decided to resign as Vice President of the Salt Lake Gallery Association. That position was doing nothing but causing me stress and drama. What surprised me was how disinterested the members of the SLGA were when I announced my resignation at the meeting. Seriously. I have been VP of that organization for over three years. I had an agenda item and said, “I am officially resigning as VP of the Salt Lake Gallery Association” and someone immediately changed the subject back to a previous topic of discussion, as though what I said had no consequence whatsoever.

The next day I got several phone calls from members saying, “Hey Laura, what do you mean you’re not VP anymore? Does that mean you don’t deal with _____ and ______? Cause I need you to do ________.”

Yeah, they didn’t get it. They didn’t believe me. Yes, it means I don’t deal with you and you don’t call me with your drama anymore.

It may be harder to quit than I think. So this reporter from the Trib called yesterday saying he was writing an article on galleries and charity auctions and how charity auctions are hurting the art industry. He called me as VP of the Gallery Association. I’ve worked with him before, he’s a super nice guy, but I got a little impatient with his questions and may have said something to the effect that I don’t care what galleries think, artists don’t read their contracts and galleries don’t enforce them and blah blah blah. Not a tactful thing to say when I represent the Utah Arts Council – my actual paying job. But the reporter was cool about it. I think he understood. He was being hounded by the same gallery that was hounding me. This gallery expects an organization or the community to solve their retail wretchedness for them. I called him back today because I was being neurotic about it last night after our conversation. I hate it when I misrepresent myself.

My paying job has been boring me lately as well. I went to a department meeting yesterday. Halfway through the “Balanced Scorecard Initiative” presentation, I discovered my cell phone had a stopwatch on it. So I checked my pulse. Twice. I averaged 85 beats per minute.

And then about three weeks ago at staff meeting, my mind started to wander after an hour. I didn’t realize it was wandering until my boss looked at me and said something like, “What do you think, Laura?” I said, “That sounds good to me,” but what I was actually thinking was “What is nougat, really?” Granted it was Halloween and I had a few 3 Musketeers in my purse. When did I stop caring? Maybe when I realized I cared too much and for no reason.

I need to get with it. Back in the game. Or I need a vacation. And not one of those wimpy five day vacations. A real vacation. Like three weeks. I’m almost there. I have 12 days saved up.