Rules, Shmules

Maybe my problem is my background, although I can't say that was my sister's problem and she was ostensibly from the same family (even if our parents were the same people, considering the years between my sister and me, they were also different ... if you catch my drift).  We'll never know what her problem was. Mom said if my sister had been born later she would have been diagnosed with ADD.  My sister seemed to enjoy breaking rules just because they were there, if my memory of her college experience is anything to go on.  Why a smoking, drinking, swearing, dancing, card-playing person would go to a small Baptist college is a question for another day.

So, I go on and off my background being my problem.  It may only have been my fear of conflict (which I swear I remember going on between my parents and my sister as far back as my term in the womb) that caused me to make sure I was doing everything right when she was being yelled at.  While my parents were against the usual Ten Commandment type stuff, they certainly didn't pay much attention to the Volstead Act.  My dad and his friends from Mechanics Institute (now RIT) made something they called Plum Brandy from sugar, yeast, prunes and raisins or they "acquired" drums of grain alcohol and with the help of a hydrometer and some juniper juice made their own gin - for their own consumption ... and that of 50 to 100 of their closest friends.

My background is second generation American from a mixed background: my father's family was from northern Germany and my mother's from southern Germany (this gets a huge laugh among Germans for some reason).   My parents lectured work ethic ("Work makes life sweet," came down to us from the grandparents ... but perhaps they meant it made the rest of life sweet by comparison) but lived it as well.  My dad didn't know what a sick day was, unless it was the headaches he got on weekends from when he wasn't at work.  He had little patience for people who had excuses about why they were late, sick, their kids sick, etc.  Vacation was the last two weeks in July that the IBM plants shut down.  Even when my dad was no longer employed directly by IBM, he worked for vendors and kept the same schedule all his working life. 

My sister worked for our father and advised me to never follow suit.  Dad expected his own kids to work harder and apparently get paid less.  And then the other workers got annoyed with her because she made too many parts and might raise the expectations of the company as to how many parts could be assembled in an hour.  Harassment from fellow workers was nothing compared to what horrors (as I recall, the word "disappointed" featured largely in these) she would face at home.  I did not follow her advice, but by the time I was old enough to do factory work, Dad was managing a much smaller factory and I worked directly under him.  Because of that, people could see that I was ridden as hard if not harder than they were.  The floor supervisor had to argue with Dad to get me a raise - and that only worked the second summer. 

I, therefore, have little patience with people who can't get to work on time - a slightly watered-down version of my dad's.  If I have a fever, I stay home, regardless of how slight it is.  I will take time off for operations and recovery, and I will take a vacation any old time.  I like rules, though, rules give shape to life.  Perhaps in my sister's case rules were there to be reshaped into something more modern and free-form.  I can't ask her because she broke another rule by dying before our parents did. 

However, yesterday I was reading a response on Quora to a question about why airline boarding is such a nightmare and one responder mentioned how much more orderly Germans are about it because of their obsession with rules.  [Actually, I think I agree with the response about carry-on bags as the problem. Why anyone is in a hurry to sit in the cramped seating is beyond me.  It would be a mercy to wait until the last moment, but you never see anyone holding back until the plane is full to get on.]  If someone tells you you can't board until your section is announced, you don't queue up and get in everyone's way.  I tend to slavishly follow speed limits (a problem they don't have in Germany where they can work out their speedlust on the Autobahn - can you say Geschwindigkeitsbegrenzung?  Which is almost as much fun a word as Rrrrrreibungsbeiwert.) and other traffic laws.  I've read up on wave theory to better handle traffic situations (here's a big hint: remember that "rule" about leaving one car length per ten mph between you and the car in front? Big help!).  Now these things are second nature to me.  I don't gripe about speed limits and claim that "without rules people would behave in a reasonable manner" (after getting a speeding ticket for going 40 mph in a 25 mph zone).

If I were told there was a half hour limit on computer use time, by golly I'd make a point of sticking to it!  (You knew it would get to something really petty, didn't you?)  And if I had children I would teach them to do the same.  "You get a half an hour to play.  After that you have to pick out some books, listen to the books that come with CDs, put on a puppet show at the puppet theatre, play with the blocks, color, or just chill."  I see some parents who do that.  They may even suggest books be picked out first.   Then there are others who think no one actually waiting to get on the computers is an excuse to sit there all day.  It's my job to juggle with the leeway we grant.  But if you let people stay on forever occasionally despite the clear rule, they learn that the rule doesn't mean squatola-mcsteinhammer.  And this makes me frustrated enough to want to quit.  As long as you're not causing a nuisance, you can stay in the library for hours and hours - but I don't see why you should get the idea that not all rules apply to you.

It's situations like this that make me want to retire yesterday.  And wear dirndls.